Former Guatemalan Police Chief Sentenced in US for Fraud

A former Guatemalan police chief has been found guilty of lying on his US immigration documents about a previous conviction for killing two political activists in his country, US federal authorities said Monday.

Catalino Esteban Valiente Alonzo, an 82-year-old resident of Fontana, California, was convicted last week of using a green card obtained through a false statement, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

Valiente Alonzo was chief of police in the Guatemalan city of Quetzaltenango in the 1980s, during the country’s civil war.

In 1987, Valiente Alonzo was arrested and charged in Guatemala for the kidnapping and murder of two political activists whose bodies were found with traces of torture on the side of a highway, federal authorities said.

Valiente Alonzo was convicted of the murders in 1989 and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. An appeals court dismissed the charges a year later, so he was released and moved to the United States.

In 1993, the Guatemalan Supreme Court overturned the appeal ruling and reinstated the sentences, according to federal officials.

Four years later, Valiente Alonzo applied for a green card after marrying a US citizen. In his immigration paperwork, he did not disclose his previous arrest in Guatemala, even though the form included a question about encounters with the law, federal prosecutors said. Valiente Alonzo entered the United States with a green card in 2013, they added.

At the moment it is unknown what it was that drew the attention of the case to the federal authorities. Valiente Alonzo was arrested on the immigration charge in 2018.

The Guatemalan has been living in the United States since 1990, but did not work with the police, said Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesman for the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

Valiente Alonzo’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 24. His attorney, Christy O’Connor, declined to comment.