Fifty-one-year-old Jesse Wagner pleaded guilty on Wednesday to residential burglary, assault with a stun gun and false imprisonment.

Wagner’s co-defendant, 45-year-old Daniel Hawks, claims he was just caught in the crossfire and ultimately got to walk free — but not before losing his reputation and career as a bounty hunter.

“He’s just a fraud,” Hawks described Wagner. “I mean, everything he does is fraudulent.”

Hawks, who had been working for years as a bounty hunter, said Wagner first reached out to him five years ago claiming to be an ICE agent who wanted to work with him.

Prosecutors said Wagner wasn’t a real agent. He was a convicted felon pretending to be one.

Hawks’ nine-year clean history as a bounty hunter in San Diego ended abruptly when he agreed to work on a case with Wagner in June of 2022.

“I was hurting for money, so, he had offered me some money to go and help him because I was the only person that I was licensed to carry a gun and everything like that,” Hawks said.

National City investigators said Wagner burglarized a fugitive’s home, tracked down the fugitive’s girlfriend who drove off, falsely imprisoned her then brought her back to the couple’s home to try and find her boyfriend’s guns.

Hawks was there the whole time.

“He offered me a pretty penny,” he said. “A thousand dollars to go out and, you know, basically just stand there. And that’s pretty much what I did. But I still got caught up into the whirlwind of this case.”

Wagner pleaded guilty to residential burglary, assault with a stun gun and false imprisonment, but before he could be sentenced, prosecutors said he left for Colorado. He continued to work as a bail agent there and was arrested and sentenced to five years for “similar conduct.”

Prosecutors couldn’t immediately specify what that conduct was but said Wagner is still serving that sentence and will serve his eight-year sentence in San Diego once that is through.

Hawks was able to walk free, but said Wagner ruined his life and warns people to be careful who they hang around.

“My career ended overnight,” he said. “And so I’ve been trying to get my life back together since then.”

Since this case, new legislation went into effect that requires bounty hunters to be properly licensed with the state and trained before working.