The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

A 20-year-old Beaumont man has been sentenced to federal prison for carjacking in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney John M. Bales.

Rogelio Arellano Torres pleaded guilty on Jan. 14, to carjacking, and was sentenced to 144 months in federal prison today by U.S. District Judge Marcia Crone.

According to court documents, on June 24, 2012, law enforcement officers were dispatched to the Walden Road area of S. IH-10 where they found a young woman visibly upset, crying and shaking. The woman told them she had been forcibly kidnapped from the Pappadeaux’s parking lot in her own car and forced to withdraw money from her account through an ATM.

The woman was eventually forced from her vehicle and the assailant fled with her car, purse and cell phone. She described the man, which police believed to be Torres based on previous contact with him, and she was able pick him out of a photo line-up.

Torres was indicted by a federal grand jury on July 11, 2012, and charged with carjacking.

This case was investigated by FBI and the Beaumont Police Department and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph R. Batte.