Honduran trafficker freed by San Francisco court gets nine months from federal judge who rejected prosecutors' deal
An illegal alien drug trafficker was given a nine-month sentence today at San Francisco federal courthouse – as it emerged that he and two men alleged to be gun-toting accomplices were sprung by a judge at the city’s Hall of Justice shortly after their arrest earlier this year.
Honduran Carlos Eduardo Palma-Guillen was caught selling drugs to an undercover SFPD officer opposite the IKEA store on Market Street just after 5:30am on January 15 2026.
He was found with fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin.
“When you have an experience like that, the one thing you can’t say is that you didn’t know what you were doing was going to get you into substantial trouble,” said U.S. District Judge James Donato this morning after reviewing the defendant’s arrest record.
Palma-Guillen earlier pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute fentanyl.
He was arrested with Luis Murillo-Galiano and Josue Flores-Martinez, who prosecutors say were armed with a .38 Taurus revolver and a 9mm Glock pistol respectively. Both are alleged to have been found with significant quantities of drugs and digital scales.
All three were released on January 20 by Superior Court Judge Dawn Payne. While prosecutors asked Payne to keep the trio locked up, they made no mention of their immigration status.
Flores-Martinez remains on bail despite a ‘negative pretrial diversion report’ received April 7 and is scheduled to appear Thursday at the Hall of Justice for a preliminary hearing.
Luis Murillo-Galiano is presently in federal custody, having been charged alongside Palma-Guillen. But, in an unusual departure, details of his federal prosecution remain sealed.
Both Flores-Martinez and Murillo-Galiano pleaded not guilty to various drug and firearm offenses in state court.
Today in Courtroom 11 of San Francisco federal courthouse, Judge Donato declined to impose the five-month sentence jointly recommended by prosecution and defense attorneys and instead handed down a nine-month term.
This followed Donato’s usual practice not to agree to federal prosecutors’ preferred disposition in ‘fast track’ cases of low time-served custodial terms and prompt referral for deportation.
The judge once again decried the lenient treatment meted out to defendants in those cases.
“I think the policy adopted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office is legal error as well as prudential error,” said the judge.
“It is not a sufficient disincentive to the vast numbers of people coming to this country from the defendant’s homeland who are poisoning our citizens who are in the grip of an addiction so powerful that they are willing to die on our streets,” he added.
Speaking through a Spanish interpreter, Palma-Guillen apologized to the court.
“I’d like to apologize for what happened,” he said. “It is the first and last time this will happen. My only plan is to go back home and support my family.”
The court heard he arrived in the U.S. in 2024.
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