WASHINGTON — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)), published as received.
WASHINGTON – Franklin Jovany Torres, 42, a convicted sex offender serving time in federal prison, was sentenced November 5 to an additional 16 months for vowing revenge and mailing death threats to the mother of a teenage boy who he had sexually abused, announced U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.
Torres pleaded guilty August 27 before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to one count of mailing threatening communications. The 16-months will be served consecutively to the earlier imposed 21-year prison term. Torres will be deported to El Salvador at the completion of the sentences.
Joining in the announcement was FBI Special Agent in Charge Darren B. Cox of the Washington Field Office.
According to the plea agreement, on Mar. 11, 2015, following a jury trial, Torres was convicted in the District of producing child pornography, distributing child pornography, possessing child pornography, and first degree sexual abuse of a minor. For those crimes he was sentenced to 252 months in prison.
On July 2, 2015, Torres mailed a handwritten letter from a Federal Corrections Institute in South Carolina to the Northwest Washington D.C. home of the minor victim’s mother.
The letter, written in Spanish, threatened, “I’m going to get out one day, and when that day comes is when you are going to shed tears of blood because that day I’m going to get rid of your whole family – cousins, nephews and nieces, granmother, children – even the dog at your home I’ll get rid of.”
The boy victim’s parents had allowed Torres to stay in their apartment after Torres lost his job and needed a place to stay. After Torres had lived with the family for several months, the victim’s mother discovered a naked photo of a male child with his face obscured on the defendant’s Facebook page. The boy in the photo turned out to be the victim. The photo was taken by Torres during an incident in which Torres had sexually abused the boy.
The mother and her son reported the sexual abuse to the police several months later, after Torres moved out of their apartment.
This case was investigated by FBI. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney James B. Nelson of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
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Editor's Note:
This matter occurred on date indicated but not published at that time due to government shutdown. Press release posted and made available following the return to normal operations.
