A former Texas state trooper has been thrown behind bars for weaving a web of lies to the feds during an investigation into a drug trafficking ring, prosecutors said. Pablo Talavera Jr., from Pharr, Texas, was sentenced to 18 months in federal slammer after pleading guilty in August to lying to the FBI, U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani's office announced.
Talavera, 36, got a harsher sentence than might be typical for such an offense. U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez imposed the 18-month term followed by a two-year supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office detailed on Thursday. The court had to listen to both sides duke it out over how much time Talavera deserved before arriving at a decision.
The investigation that charged Talavera began back in 2019. It targeted a criminal organization shipping hefty loads of meth, heroin, and cocaine from the Rio Grande Valley to Tennessee., Fed agents discovered the operation was run by none other than Talavera's father, who’s now clocking 21 years in federal lockup.
As part of his duties as a DPS trooper, Talavera ran license plates to tip off his dad's criminal enterprise about possible police surveillance, court records showed. He lied at first but eventually admitted to the questionable act, according to the justice department's announcement. Despite the conviction, he was allowed to linger on bond and wave himself off to prison on his terms.
The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations headed the sting as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) initiative. This multi-agency smackdown on high-level criminal groups is led by a team of prosecutors aimed at taking apart threats to U.S. soil, piece by piece. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jesse Salazar is prosecuting this case.
