Former Dallas ISD police officer sentenced to a year in prison in alien harboring case

DALLAS – A former police officer with the Dallas Independent School District was sentenced Friday to one year and one day in federal prison after he pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to harbor an illegal alien.

Favian LaTorre, 57, must surrender to the Bureau of Prisons Jan. 7. His co-conspirator, Gloria Palacios, 40, also of Dallas, pleaded guilty to the same offense and was sentenced earlier this month to two years in federal prison. Palacios has been in custody since her arrest in December 2012.

This sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas. This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the FBI.

In addition to his prison sentence, Chief U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater also ordered LaTorre to pay $10,493 in restitution.

According to his filed factual resume, in July 2008, LaTorre began recruiting "F.P.," who was 15 years old, to come to the U.S. illegally to provide care for the young child he and co-conspirator Palacios had together. LaTorre had taken his child to El Salvador for a brief period during 2008, and during that time, F.P. had cared for the child in El Salvador.

LaTorre and Palacios promised F.P.’s parents that they would arrange for F.P. to be smuggled into the U.S. with the help of a "coyote." LaTorre and Palacios also promised F.P.’s parents that F.P. would be safe.

F.P. traveled from El Salvador to the U.S. with the coyote hired by LaTorre and Palacios. When F.P. entered the U.S. with the coyote, LaTorre picked up F.P. in Houston and transported her to Palacios’s Dallas residence.

F.P. lived and worked in Palacios’s residence, caring for LaTorre and Palacios’ young child from September 2008 until about February 2009. During this time, LaTorre concealed, harbored and shielded F.P., an illegal alien from El Salvador, from detection in Palacios’ residence, and elsewhere.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Errin Martin, Northen District of Texas, prosecuted this case.