FROM STAFF REPORTS 

A federal grand jury on Aug. 28 indicted two men on charges of illegally re-entering the United States after having previously been deported after they were arrested in Alabaster in July.

Francisco Alatorre-Chavez, 39, was arrested by Alabaster police on July 15 on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

After police checked the suspect’s criminal records, they discovered Alatorre-Chavez was convicted in Jefferson County Circuit Court in December 2011 for unlawful possession of a controlled substance, and that he had prior arrests for domestic assault, failure to appear and DUI, according to a press release from U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance.

Alatorre-Chavez was deported from the United States to Mexico at Brownsville, Texas, in December 2011, according to his indictment.

Carlos Alberto Pineda-Palacios, 28, of El Salvador, also was indicted on Aug. 28 on charges of illegally re-entering the United States after having been deported to El Salvador in September 2004. A criminal complaint and affidavit in Pineda-Palacios’ case states he was arrested in Alabaster in July on administrative deportation charges.

Deportation officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigated Alatorre-Chavez’s case, and Homeland Security Investigations special agents investigated Pineda-Palacios’s case, which Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan is prosecuting.