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  • Sex trafficking plea deal unending ‘nightmare’ for Texas mom

    Sex trafficking plea deal unending ‘nightmare’ for Texas mom

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    SAN ANTONIO — Irma Reyes changed clothes in the back seat of the pickup: skirt, tights, turtleneck, leather jacket. All black. She brushed her hair and pulled on heels as her husband drove their Chevy through predawn darkness toward a courthouse hundreds of miles from home.

    She wanted to look confident — poised but hellbent. The outfit was meant to let Texas prosecutors know just what kind of formidable mother they’d be crossing that morning.

    Weeks earlier, Reyes learned about the plea deal. State lawyers planned to let the two men charged with sex trafficking her daughter walk free.

    She’d barely been able to eat or brush her teeth since, her mind racing: Why are they doing this? Can I get the judge to stop it? Don’t they know my daughter matters?

    Reyes’ daughter was 16 in 2017, when men she knew only as “Rocky” and “Blue” kept her and another girl at a San Antonio motel where men paid to have sex with them. Now, the cases against Rakim Sharkey and Elijah Teel — the men police identified as the traffickers — have seen years of delay, a parade of prosecutors, an aborted trial and, ultimately, a stark retreat by the government.

    They are among thousands of cases under a cloud of dysfunction at the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose legal troubles include a criminal investigation by Justice Department officials in Washington. Trafficking cases in particular have come under scrutiny and cast doubt on how the agency, which fights court battles affecting people far beyond Texas, uses millions of state tax dollars on an issue that Republican leaders trumpet as a priority while attacking Democrats’ approach to border security.

    For Reyes, her daughter, and other victims and families, the politics take a backseat to their pain. To them, the plea deal is a case study in how the agency’s troubles are undercutting justice for vulnerable victims.

    A spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, Kristen House, declined to answer questions about the deal, the actions of prosecutors, and other details of the case involving Reyes’ daughter.

    “It’s like a nightmare that I can’t wake up from,” Reyes told The Associated Press.

    ______

    The case was ready for trial years before that January day Reyes and her husband made their way to the San Antonio courthouse, said Kirsta Leeburg Melton.

    “You will not find a stronger corroborated case,” said Melton, who oversaw the attorney general’s human trafficking unit until late 2019 and now runs the Institute to Combat Trafficking. “And I’m sick. It’s wrong.”

    In the courthouse, Reyes’ stomach churned as she thought of the deal for the two men: five years of probation. The original charges carried potential sentences of decades in prison.

    “I need to puke,” said Reyes, 45, her heels clicking down the hallway to the bathroom.

    Inside the crowded courtroom, she waited on a back bench for hours, watching people charged with drug crimes and drunken driving draw harsher sentences.

    One of the defendants walked in and sat for a while on the same bench. Just one person separated them, but he seemed not to recognize Reyes. She squeezed her husband’s hand.

    When the judge got to their case, she summarized its twists and turns: years lost to the pandemic, delays due to “turnover in the attorney general’s office,” days of testimony last year only for several people to catch COVID-19 and prompt a mistrial.

    A defense attorney for Sharkey said his client was in a “strong position” for acquittal but would accept the deal to put the case behind him. Reyes listened in disbelief as the new prosecutor told the judge that Reyes’ daughter — now a 22-year-old with whom she keeps up a steady stream of text messages — was “on the run.”

    Sharkey and Teel pleaded “no contest” to aggravated promotion of prostitution. The judge, Velia Meza, sentenced the men to seven years of probation, despite prosecutors recommending five, adding that they’d be strictly supervised but wouldn’t have to register as sex offenders.

    Then, it was Reyes’ turn. Meza would allow a victim impact statement.

    Reyes walked slowly to the front of the court, clutching her handwritten statement. She thought of her daughter: a beautiful soul who blasts Beyoncé and loves her dogs, a fighter who overcame a lifetime of struggles to get sober, a woman who took the witness stand just months earlier against the man charged with trafficking her.

    Reyes reached the waiting bailiff. She took the microphone.

    ____

    Reyes’ daughter lost a brother when she was young. Then her estranged father died. She was bullied at school.

    The AP is withholding the young woman’s name, in keeping with its policy to avoid identifying victims of sexual assault and other such crimes. Reyes told AP she spoke about this story with her daughter, who did not want to comment or be interviewed directly.

    Reyes said that as a girl, her daughter would run away from the large family’s South Texas home. By her teens, she started using drugs and getting psychological care through the juvenile justice system. In September 2017, she was sent to a rehabilitation center.

    Court records show it was only days after Reyes’ daughter and another girl ran away from rehab that their photos were advertised online for “dates” out of a motel room off the interstate. They met “Blue” outside a motel, where they couldn’t afford a night’s stay. He introduced them to “Rocky.” The pair rented the girls a room, helped set up meetings with men who’d pay for sex, and collected half the money at the end of each day, according to the records.

    Reyes’ daughter later testified that when one of the men hit her, she got scared and called her mom. Reyes found the phone number advertised on Backpages.com, a classifieds website later shut down by law enforcement. She called police; officers found the girls at the motel that night.

    Ten days after running away, Reyes’ daughter was in a juvenile lockup talking to a detective who would spend months tracking down the men.

    “We’re able to get the surveillance video. We were able to get room receipts. We were able to get cellphones, which were extracted for data,” detective Manuel Anguiano told AP. “I don’t think I’ve ever worked a case that had more evidence.”

    Several people who worked on the case told AP they were outraged by the attorney general’s office’s final resolution.

    “It’s absolutely an unfortunate outcome,” said Cara Pierce, who oversaw the agency’s human trafficking unit until August 2022. “This was a triable case when I left.”

    Sharkey’s lawyer, Jason Goss, maintains the jury would have acquitted his client but told AP he had no choice but to plead no contest to the reduced charge because the potential sentence of 25 years to life was too risky. Teel’s attorney, Brian Powers, didn’t respond to phone messages and emails seeking comment.

    After getting out of the detention facility, Reyes’ daughter lived away from home for a while, then returned to her mother’s house on a quiet, residential block.

    She barely left her spartan bedroom, Reyes said, and couldn’t talk about what had happened. Reyes in turn got anxious when her daughter was around men. They avoided crowds.

    Reyes coaxed her back into the world. She brought her treats – Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Limón Lays – and the book “Women Who Run with the Wolves.”

    Gradually, they ventured out, taking morning walks in a nature preserve, watching the birds while eating lunch in Reyes’ car. But the young woman still had panic attacks, sometimes shutting herself in the bathroom.

    That’s where she was when Connie Spence, a prosecutor who signed on to the case in summer 2020, arrived to talk, Reyes said. Spence got down on the floor, speaking calmly as the young woman hyperventilated.

    After that, Reyes said, her daughter began weekly counseling. She started volunteering at a library and museum. She reenrolled in school and, last June, mother and daughter drove together to San Antonio to testify.

    “They built a bond somehow,” Reyes said. “Connie gave her hope.”

    On the witness stand, Reyes’ daughter struggled to breath and had difficulty recalling details from years before. But over hours of testimony she recounted how she came to be having sex to at the motel to pay “Rocky.” She testified that he got mad after she spoke to other men there, taking her into a room and hitting her across the face.

    Asked to identify “Rocky,” the young woman pointed across the courtroom at Sharkey.

    ___

    Four days later, Reyes and her daughter were relaxing in the summer heat on their patio when Spence called to tell them the judge had declared a mistrial because four people in the courtroom caught COVID-19.

    They told themselves testifying would be easier the second time. All three women agreed to go back to court as many times as needed.

    But it would be the last time they spoke to Spence.

    She left the attorney general’s office the following month, according to personnel files obtained under public records laws. Spence’s resignation letter gives no reason. She didn’t respond to calls and messages seeking comment.

    Spence left amid a wave of seasoned prosecutors quitting over practices they said were meant to slant legal work, reward loyalists and drum out dissent. The next month, the office dropped a separate series of trafficking and child sexual assault cases after losing track of one of the victims.

    In October, Reyes was introduced to new lead lawyer James Winters — the last of eight prosecutors to handle the case for the attorney general’s office, court records show. Reyes said her daughter told Winters she would testify again.

    The lawyer later asked that the case be postponed again, but the judge refused. Reyes didn’t hear from prosecutors again until early January, when Winters called about the plea deal. It was a couple weeks after her daughter had left home.

    In the silence, she’d grown pessimistic about the case. They had a fight, Reyes said. The young woman went to stay with a friend’s family.

    Reyes worried about her daughter and whether she might turn to old habits. She spent Christmas with the family, but left soon after.

    Still, a victim’s advocate told prosecutors that Reyes could get her daughter to court, internal office messages obtained by AP show. Reyes doesn’t understand why Winters later told the judge her daughter was “on the run.”

    Winters, who referred emailed questions to an attorney general’s spokesman, submitted his resignation letter three weeks after appearing in court for the plea deal, which was first reported by Texas Public Radio.

    ___

    In San Antonio, Reyes clutched her jacket around her shoulders as she reached the front of the courtroom and took the microphone for her victim impact statement.

    She’d spent lunch writing out what she wanted to say, but rage got the better of her planning. She looked at the men accused of trafficking her daughter and two other girls, at the lawyers flanking their clients, at men who’d also gotten probation on charges of soliciting and paying the girls for sex.

    Reyes began speaking quietly, the statement still crumpled under her jacket.

    “Rakim, can you look at me?” she said, as Sharkey examined his hands. “You have daughters. Going on your third. Exactly the number of victims.”

    She told one of the men who’d paid for sex that she’s glad his family left him.

    And she gestured at Winters, the prosecutor. “He doesn’t represent me. I represent myself right now. I’m not afraid of you.”

    Reyes spoke for nearly five minutes, her voice rising as she turned to face the courtroom and beseeched people who were being trafficked to come forward.

    “There are victims out there that this minute are being pimped by these types of guys, this type of trash,” she said. “And the trash is supposed to be disposed. But they’re lucky today.”

    Reyes’ voice broke.

    “What these people do to their victims — nothing will ever fix that,” she said. “We just try to hold on.”

    ___

    Reyes cried on the way home, but the drive otherwise passed in silence. Her husband, who doesn’t speak much English, hadn’t followed everything in court. Reyes didn’t know how to explain.

    She also didn’t know how to tell her daughter, who’d already lost hope the men would go to prison.

    Reyes wanted her to come home, to talk in person. But her daughter’s bedroom was empty.

    Reyes felt isolated and got little rest, with violent nightmares. She kept the blinds drawn. She struggled to breathe and fantasized about feeling nothing.

    Two days after the hearing, Reyes sat alone in her bedroom, where crosses line the walls. She felt abandoned by the prosecutors, by the judge, by her family, by God. She thought about how she would take her own life. The idea seemed soothing. Her thoughts grew specific. But then she thought of her children and called a crisis hotline.

    “I just swim into my thoughts,” she said. “It’s like a big ocean once you let your mind wander. But pulling yourself back up, that’s where I have to be aware that I don’t dive too deep.”

    Reyes turned 46 the next week. She spent her birthday at the doctor’s office. She cried uncontrollably. The doctor prescribed anti-anxiety medicine.

    Reyes is in therapy. She’s signed up for dance classes and walks her dogs in the nature preserve, hoping her daughter will join them soon.

    She’s still grasping for closure. Reyes filed complaints with the attorney general’s office, the state bar association and the U.S. Department of Justice, although none will reopen the criminal case. Perhaps her best hope from the legal system is a civil lawsuit that she hopes her daughter will one day be ready to bring.

    She and her daughter talk more lately. Their texts are filled with worry but also jokes and photos.

    One day, Reyes’ son shook her awake at 3 a.m. A sheriff’s deputy was on the phone and said her daughter had called 911 having a panic attack; she said she wanted to go home.

    I’ve lived this before, Reyes thought. She asked the deputy to wait with her daughter.

    Then she pulled on shoes, climbed into the pickup and drove out into the night.

    ____

    EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

    ____

    Associated Press photographer Eric Gay and videojournalist Lekan Oyekanmi contributed to this report.

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  • With overdoses up, states look at harsher fentanyl penalties

    With overdoses up, states look at harsher fentanyl penalties

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    RENO, Nev. — State lawmakers nationwide are responding to the deadliest overdose crisis in U.S. history by pushing harsher penalties for possessing fentanyl and other powerful lab-made opioids that are connected to about 70,000 deaths a year.

    Imposing longer prison sentences for possessing smaller amounts of drugs represents a shift in states that in recent years have rolled back drug possession penalties. Proponents of tougher penalties say this crisis is different and that, in most places, the stiffer sentences are intended to punish drug dealers, not just users.

    “There is no other drug — no other illicit drug — that has the same type of effects on our communities,” said Mark Jackson, the district attorney for Douglas County, Nevada, and president of the Nevada District Attorneys Association, which is pushing for stricter penalties for fentanyl-related crimes.

    But the strategy is alarming recovery advocates who say focusing on the criminal angle of drugs has historically backfired, including when lawmakers elevated crack cocaine penalties in the 1980s.

    “Every time we treat drugs as a law enforcement problem and push stricter laws, we find that we punish people in ways that destroy their lives and make it harder for them to recover later on,” said Adam Wandt, an assistant professor of public policy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He said people behind bars often continue getting drugs — often without receiving quality addiction treatment — then emerge to find it’s harder to get work.

    Since 2020, drug overdoses are now linked to more than 100,000 deaths a year nationally, with about two-thirds of them fentanyl-related. That’s more than 10 times as many drug deaths as in 1988, at the height of the crack epidemic.

    Fentanyl mostly arrives in the U.S. from Mexico and is mixed into supplies of other drugs, including cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and counterfeit oxycodone pills. Some users seek it out. Others don’t know they’re taking it.

    Ingesting 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be fatal, meaning 1 gram — about the same as a paper clip — could contain 500 lethal doses.

    That’s what’s driving some lawmakers to crack down with harsh penalties, along with adopting measures such as legalizing materials to test drug supplies for fentanyl and distributing naloxone, a drug that can reverse overdoses.

    Before this year’s legislative sessions began, a dozen states had already adopted fentanyl possession measures, according to tracking by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

    And in this year, in one legislative chamber of liberal Oregon and one chamber of conservative West Virginia, lawmakers have agreed upon tougher penalties. In her State of the State speech this March, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, called on lawmakers to adopt a drug trafficking bill that includes tougher fentanyl sentences.

    In Nevada, where Democrats control the Legislature, a bill backed by Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford would give one to 20 years in prison for selling, possessing, manufacturing or transporting 4 grams or more of fentanyl into the state, depending on the amount. It’s a change for Ford, who has supported criminal justice reforms including a sweeping 2019 law that, among other provisions, raised the threshold for such penalties to 100 grams. It would also remove fentanyl from the state’s “Good Samaritan” law, which exempts people from criminal drug possession charges while reporting an overdose.

    “What we’ve learned is that lowering the thresholds for all drugs was overinclusive,” Ford said.

    Harm reduction advocates are pushing Ford and others to rethink their support, arguing the thresholds for longer penalties can sweep up low-level users — not just the dealers the law is aimed at — as well as some who may not even know they are taking fentanyl. They warn that the state’s crime labs test only for the presence of fentanyl, not the exact amount in a mixture of drugs. Thus, people with over 4 grams of drugs containing a few milligrams of fentanyl could be subject to trafficking penalties, they say.

    Rosa Johnson runs a needle exchange where she meets people who could face consequences should the stricter fentanyl bill pass. For the dozens of people that show up each day, it is rare for them to cite fentanyl as their “drug of choice.” But it’s also rare that fentanyl test strips come back negative, with the drug being “laced in a lot of things,” Johnson said.

    Other lawmakers introduced two bills to create penalties for fentanyl with lower thresholds, though much of the internal debate surrounds the Ford-backed bill. Meanwhile, Nevada’s Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, a former sheriff, has vowed to introduce tougher legislation that would make possession of any amount of fentanyl the same felony threshold as fentanyl trafficking.

    Both Republican-led chambers in South Carolina have passed fentanyl trafficking measures with bipartisan support, although lawmakers haven’t agreed on which version to send the governor. Senators also unanimously approved a bill allowing alleged drug dealers to be charged with homicide in overdose deaths.

    House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford slammed colleagues for selling a “false bill of goods.” While Republican Rep. Doug Gilliam said he understood concerns about ambiguity, he said lawmakers had to send a “strong message” to drug dealers.

    A Senate subcommittee heard emotional testimony from family members of people who died of a fentanyl overdose. Among them was Holly Alsobrooks, co-founder of an advocacy group that also supports more fentanyl test strips, opioid antidotes and rehabilitation centers. While Alsobrooks said there is no “perfect” solution, she said the fentanyl trafficking measures are the “best” answers she has heard.

    “We are fully behind this bill,” she said. “And if people go to jail, they’re going to go to jail.”

    Marc Burrows, who leads a Greenville-based harm reduction program that reports it has reversed 700 overdoses through the provision of opioid antidotes, said these bills could increase deaths by creating hesitancy among drug users to report overdoses.

    “I just don’t know if a policy like this is the way to do it,” Burrows said.

    ___

    Pollard reported from Columbia, South Carolina, and Mulvihill from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Pollard and Stern are members for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit service program that places journalists in newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • 14-year-old boy arrested in Mexico for murder of 8

    14-year-old boy arrested in Mexico for murder of 8

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    Mexican authorities have arrested a 14-year-old boy nicknamed “El Chapito” for the contract killing of eight people near Mexico City

    MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities have arrested a 14-year-old boy nicknamed “El Chapito” for the drug-related killing of eight people near Mexico City, the federal Public Safety Department said Thursday.

    The boy allegedly rode up on a motorcycle and opened fire on a family in the low-income Mexico City suburb of Chimalhuacan. Another man was also arrested in the Jan. 22 killings, and seven other members of the gang were arrested on drug charges.

    The victims were holding a party at their house at the time of the attack, which also left five adults and two children wounded. It was reportedly a birthday party.

    The boy’s name was not released, but his nickname — “Little Chapo” — is an apparent reference to imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

    The motive in the killings has not been made public, but drug gangs in Mexico frequently dabble in kidnapping and contract killing. They also kill rivals selling drugs on their territory, or people who who them money.

    Mexico is no stranger to child killers.

    In 2010, soldiers detained a 14-year-old boy nicknamed “El Ponchis” who claimed he was kidnapped at age 11 and forced to work for the Cartel of the South Pacific, a branch of the splintered Beltran Leyva gang. He said he had participated in at least four decapitations.

    After his arrest, the boy, who authorities identified only by his first name, Edgar, told reporters that he was drugged and threatened into committing the crimes.

    Also Thursday, prosecutors in the northern border state of Sonora said they had arrested a woman linked to as many as nine murders in the border city of Mexicali.

    The state prosecutors’ office said that the woman had outstanding warrants for two killings, but that she had been named in seven other homicide investigations. The office did not say what the possible motives might be in those killings.

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  • US sues Rite Aid for missing opioid red flags | CNN Business

    US sues Rite Aid for missing opioid red flags | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The Justice Department on Monday filed a lawsuit against Rite Aid for allegedly violating the Controlled Substances Act, alleging that the company “knowingly filled unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances.”

    In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Department of Justice is “using every tool at our disposal” to hold Rite Aid accountable for contributing to the opioid epidemic.

    Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said “Rite Aid’s pharmacists repeatedly filled prescriptions for controlled substances with obvious red flags, and Rite Aid intentionally deleted internal notes about suspicious prescribers. These practices opened the floodgates for millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to flow illegally out of Rite Aid’s stores.”

    In the complaint, The Justice department alleges that from May 2014 to June 2019, Rite Aid filled thousands of unlawful combinations of prescriptions known as “the trinity” which included prescriptions for “excessive quantities of opioids, such as oxycodone and fentanyl.”

    Rite Aid pharmacists were accused of ignoring obvious signs of misuse and intentionally deleting some pharmacists’ internal warnings about suspicious prescribers, such as “cash only pill mill???”

    “These practices opened the floodgates for millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to flow illegally out of Rite Aid’s stores,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said.

    The Justice Department said the prescriptions, who were issued illegally, “lacked a legitimate medical purpose, were not for a medically accepted indication, or were not issued in the usual course of professional practice.”

    Rite Aid is one of the country’s largest pharmacy chains, with more than 2,330 stores in 17 US states. It did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The Justice Department accused Rite Aid of violating the federal False Claims Act by submitting false prescription claims to government health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

    It joined a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2019 by two pharmacists and a pharmacy technician from Rite Aid stores in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and West Virginia.

    The Justice Department occasionally joins whistleblower cases it considers stronger.

    It has also sued Walmart and drug distributor AmerisourceBergen Corp over their alleged roles in the nation’s opioid crisis.

    More than 500,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States from 1999 to 2020, including more than 90,000 in 2020 alone, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Sister grieves for American killed in Mexico kidnapping

    Sister grieves for American killed in Mexico kidnapping

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    LAKE CITY, S.C. — Prepping for his first trip out of the country, 28-year-old Zindell Brown of Lake City, South Carolina, had something more than nerves. Perhaps it was a premonition about the trip he and several friends were taking to Mexico.

    “He said, ‘Something, it just doesn’t feel right,’” his older sister Zalandria Brown told The Associated Press over the phone. “(That was) the last thing we talked about.”

    Hopping into protection mode for the man so close to her that she called him her “hip bone,” Brown urged her brother to not take the trip planned earlier this month. As someone known to help others, however, Brown wasn’t surprised her sibling shook off the feeling and offered to drive with his group of childhood friends on a road trip to Mexico, where one was scheduled for cosmetic surgery and another planned to celebrate his 34th birthday.

    The inside of a rented white van would be the last place Brown would see her baby brother alive. Sometime during the nearly 22-hour trip from South Carolina to Brownsville, Texas, Brown watched a video posted online of Zindell smiling into the camera.

    But in Mexico, the group was attacked. Around midday, a vehicle crashed into the group’s van. Several men with tactical vests and assault rifles arrived in another vehicle and surrounded them, according to Mexican police reports.

    Two members of the group — Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard — were shot and killed. Eric Williams was shot in the leg, and he and fellow survivor Latavia McGee were loaded into a pickup truck, according to video posted on social media. The violence was blamed on the Gulf cartel, a drug gang tied to killings and kidnappings in Matamoros, a city of a half-million people that has long been a stronghold of the powerful cartel. The group purpotedly apologized for the killings in a letter obtained by the Associated Press from a Mexican law enforcement official.

    Even before she viewed footage of the ambush that quickly circulated online, Zalandria Brown said she began to have a sickening feeling that her brother was gone.

    “That was the other part of my soul,” she said.

    She called her brother the male version of herself. Gone is her game hunting partner and the “cool uncle” her two (teenage) sons looked up to.

    “He always put a smile on everybody’s face. He was always joking and playing and laughing around,” she said.

    In the days leading up to the trip, Zindell spent time at home, playing video games – a break from the other work his hands were known for: carpentry. Zindell picked up woodworking skills from his father, who wanted to train him in the family craft.

    “He had so many skills. He could do carpentry work,” she said, adding: “He did roofing work. He could do everything you could think of when it came to building a house. My father trained him to do all of that.”

    Though she lives in Florence, South Carolina, Brown said she, her brother, Woodard and McGee all grew up in modest Lake City. By midweek, the town of fewer than 6,000 people seemed consumed by the grim loss.

    At the local library on Main Street, patrons chatted amongst themselves about condolences, while a few blocks away near the police station a stranger pressed a bouquet of purple flowers into the arms of Shaeed’s father.

    This month would have marked Shaeed Woodard’s 34th birthday, according to his father, James Woodard. Shaeed’s cousin Latavia McGee had surprised him with the road trip as a birthday excursion, James Woodard said. Shaeed and Zindell were close; Brown said she also considered him a brother.

    By the night of March 5, Brown would get a phone call confirming her worst fears. A family friend phoned to say the doctor’s office they were headed to in Mexico called to say McGee was late and thought to be kidnapped. McGee said every day since then for her surviving two siblings and parents has seemed like a “nightmare.” Neither family said they accept the cartel’s apology for the violent abductions. “It’s just crazy to see your own child taken from you in such a way, in a violent lay like that,” Woodard said. “He didn’t deserve it because he was a sweetheart. He had a big heart.”

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  • Americans’ fun road trip to Mexico became days of horror

    Americans’ fun road trip to Mexico became days of horror

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    LAKE CITY, S.C. — It was supposed to be a fun road trip to Mexico, a post-pandemic adventure for a group of childhood friends.

    One was treating herself to cosmetic surgery after having six children. It was a 34th birthday celebration for another.

    They rented a white van in South Carolina and set out on the nearly 22-hour trip, shooting silly videos and driving straight through to Brownsville, on the tip of Texas.

    “Good morning, America!” Eric Williams said into the camera in the early morning hours after the all-night drive. “Mexico, here we come.”

    But once they got to Mexico, the trip took a terrible turn. Two members of the group would never make it home, victims of the ruthless Gulf cartel, a drug gang tied to brutal killings and kidnappings in the violent border city of Matamoros, a city of a half-million people that has long been a stronghold of the powerful cartel.

    There could hardly be a worse border town to pick for a fun adventure.

    It all started when Latavia McGee booked the cosmetic surgery with a doctor she’d been to before, in 2021. Dr. Roberto Chavez Medina’s advertisements on Facebook and TikTok have a strong following among American women.

    It’s a common story — people often leave the U.S. for all sorts of medical treatment; costs in Mexico can be less than half what someone would pay in the United States.

    McGee’s appointment was within days of her cousin Shaeed Woodard’s 34th birthday. Friends Zindell Brown and Cheryl Orange rounded out the group of five, most of whom had grown up together in Lake City, South Carolina, a town of fewer than 6,000 people.

    Once they got to the border, they rented rooms at a Motel 6 off the highway in Brownsville, a lush town with a high poverty rate on the Rio Grande where parrots squawk from palm trees.

    The friends set out early Friday to cross an international bridge that spans the two countries, thinking they were headed to see the doctor right on the other side. Orange stayed at the motel in Brownsville because she forgot to bring her ID to cross the border.

    “They went to drop her off and was supposed to be back within 15 minutes,” Orange said.

    But the clinic had moved to a new location several blocks away.

    It’s not clear what happened next: perhaps the group got lost. The Mexican state of Tamaulipas is the subject of a U.S. State Department warning to avoid travel because of violent crime and kidnappings, but the friends may not have known — Williams’ mother said she didn’t think her son had ever been out of the U.S.

    Hours passed, and on the U.S. side of the border, Orange contacted the Brownsville police, concerned something bad had happened.

    Her worst fears would come to pass.

    Just a few miles across the border, around midday, a vehicle crashed into the group’s van. Several men with tactical vests and assault rifles arrived in another vehicle and surrounded them, according to Mexican police reports. Shots rang out.

    Brown and Woodard were hit by bullets and appeared to have died immediately. Williams was shot in the leg.

    Video on social media showed men forcing McGee into the bed of a pickup truck, then going back to drag a wounded Williams and the bodies of their two friends across the road and into the truck as onlookers in traffic sat in their cars eerily silent. One witness said no one wanted to draw the gunmen’s attention.

    The truck barreled off. A Mexican woman who had been hit by a stray bullet, 33-year-old Areli Pablo Servando, was left to die on the street.

    When Mexican authorities arrived on the scene, they found Social Security cards and credit cards belonging to the group of friends inside the van, marked by a bullet hole in the driver’s side window. The U.S. consulate, only blocks away, issued an alert, warning its employees to avoid the area until further notice because of a deadly shooting downtown.

    The doctor at the clinic later told investigators he thought it was strange his patient hadn’t shown up for the procedure, which can run up to $3,000, but his office had only communicated with her electronically. The clinic was about a four-minute drive from where their van had crashed.

    The crash would be the start of some of the most terrifying days of the surviving friends’ lives.

    The cartel members drove them from place to place around the city in a harrowing ride, stopping shortly after the shooting at a medical clinic.

    A doctor told investigators that two men with assault rifles burst in through a back door and threatened to kill staff if they didn’t treat a wounded person with them. The gunmen and their hostages stayed three hours at the clinic and then left, according to Mexican investigative documents viewed by The Associated Press.

    Orange was worried, stuck on the other side of the border at the Motel 6 with no clue what had happened. On Saturday morning, she spoke to a Brownsville officer at the motel. Within an hour, a detective was assigned to the case and shortly after that Brownsville police handed it off to the FBI.

    On Sunday, the FBI reported their disappearances and offered a $50,000 reward for their return and the arrest of the kidnappers, and U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar said U.S. officials contacted President Andrés Manuel López Obrador directly to ask for help in locating the missing Americans.

    Back home, their family and friends in the United States watched the video of their capture in horror and prayed. The wait, the silence, became unbearable.

    “I just want them to come home,” Zalandria Brown, Zindell Brown’s older sister, said Monday night. “Dead or alive, just bring them home.”

    Jerry Wallace, Williams’ cousin, couldn’t eat or sleep.

    “It’s really something just trying to just wait and hear what’s going on and not hearing nothing,” Wallace said..

    The next day, the agony of not knowing ended, but with the news came more heartache.

    An anonymous tipster reported sighting armed men and people in blindfolds at a shabby, orange shack with blue trim and a corrugated metal roof in a tiny rural community known as Ejido Tecolote, on the outskirts of Matamoros. A white pickup parked outside matched the one the Americans had been loaded into March 3, according to the Mexican investigative documents.

    The shack was near Playa Bagdad — or “Bagdad Beach,” a remote strip of sand where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico that has been known as a drop-off point for U.S.-bound smuggled goods since the U.S. Civil War.

    Mexican authorities, following the lead, drove the dirt roads searching. Then they heard shouts and the word: “Help!” That led them to the shack, where they found McGee and Williams blindfolded inside. They were being held next to the of bodies their friends, who had been wrapped in blankets and plastic bags, according to the Mexican investigative documents.

    A 24-year-old man in a tactical vest who was guarding them darted out the back door, only to be quickly apprehended.

    The two Americans were rushed to a Brownsville hospital.

    Robert Williams, Eric’s brother, said he couldn’t wait to tell him “how glad I am that he made it through and that I love him.” His 11-year-old son was overjoyed.

    On Thursday, as two of the friends’ bodies were returned to the U.S. in hearses, calls grew for action to be taken to crush the Gulf cartel. The cartel’s Scorpions faction apologized in a letter and announced it had handed over five members who were responsible for the abductions of innocent Americans. The letter was obtained by the AP through a Tamaulipas state law enforcement official.

    Woodard’s father said he was speechless.

    “I’ve just been trying to make sense out of it for a whole week. Just restless, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. It’s just crazy to see your own child taken from you in such a way, in a violent way like that,” James Woodard told reporters. “He didn’t deserve it.”

    Orange was speechless too. She said Friday in a voice text to an AP reporter that she and her friends who survived the attack are not ready to talk about their ill-fated trip.

    “We just want to begin to recover,” she said.

    ___

    Watson reported from San Diego and Peña reported from Ciudad Victoria. Pollard is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Iraq’s crackdown on booze, social media posts raises alarm

    Iraq’s crackdown on booze, social media posts raises alarm

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    BAGHDAD — Only a few months into its term, Iraq’s government is suddenly enforcing a long-dormant law banning alcohol imports and arresting people over social media content deemed morally offensive. The crackdown has raised alarm among religious minorities and rights activists.

    Some see the measures as an attempt by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to head off potential political challenges from religious conservatives and to distract from economic woes, such as rising prices and wild currency fluctuations.

    The ban on the import, sale and production of alcohol was adopted in 2016, but was only published in the official gazette last month, making it enforceable. On Saturday, Iraq’s customs authority ordered all border crossings to impose the prohibition.

    Although many liquor stores across Iraq continued business as usual — presumably using up their stocks — border crossings went dry overnight, with the exception of the northern, semi-autonomous Kurdish region which hasn’t enforced the ban. The price of alcohol, meanwhile, spiked due to tightened supply.

    Ghazwan Isso manufactures arak, a popular anise-flavored spirit, at his factory in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. He sells it, along with imported, foreign-made alcohol, at 15 stores in Baghdad.

    “There are imported goods at the borders that are not allowed to enter, with a value of tens of millions of dollars,” he said.

    Isso said he is also stuck with $3 million worth of goods in warehouses — liquor produced in his factory. It’s not clear yet if and when the ban on the sale of alcohol will be enforced as well, but Isso said he won’t send his trucks from his Mosul factory to Baghdad for fear they’ll get stopped.

    For Isso, the ban is a blow to Iraq’s multi-confessional social fabric. He believes it will prompt more non-Muslims to emigrate.

    Alcohol is generally prohibited in Islam — the religion of the vast majority of Iraqis — but is permitted and used in religious rituals by Christians, who make up 1% of Iraq’s population of about 40 million.

    “The law is a narrowing of freedoms,” Isso said, adding the ban would encourage “bribes and blackmail, because alcohol will be sold the same way like illegal drugs.”

    Joseph Sliwa, a former Christian lawmaker, blamed the decision to start enforcing the law on extremists within Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities. He said alcohol shop owners and producers would become vulnerable, with those in power or armed groups likely trying to squeeze them for bribes.

    Like Isso, Sliwa also worried the alcohol ban could increase the use of illegal drugs.

    A judge and former lawmaker, Mahmoud al-Hassan, defended the ban as constitutional and argued that it’s in line with the beliefs of most Iraqis and therefore would not impact personal freedoms.

    “Quite the opposite, the majority of the people of Iraq are Muslim and their freedoms should be respected,” he said. “They make up 97% of the country.”

    He downplayed fears that outlawing alcohol would increase trafficking of other drugs. “Drugs already exist, with or without this law,” he said. “Alcohol also causes addiction and social problems.”

    The alcohol ban comes on the heels of the contentious campaign to police social media content.

    In January, the Interior Ministry formed a committee to investigate reports of what it called indecent posts and set up a website for public complaints. The site received tens of thousands of reports.

    A month later, judicial authorities announced the courts had charged 14 people for posting content labeled indecent or immoral; six were sentenced to prison time.

    Among those targeted were people who posted videos of music, comedy skits and sarcastic social commentary. Some showed dance moves deemed provocative, used obscene language or raised sensitive social issues such as gender relations in Iraq’s predominantly conservative society.

    Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as local and regional rights groups, said the crackdown on expression violates fundamental rights.

    “Iraqis should be free to express themselves … whether it is to make jokes or engage in satire, criticize or hold authorities accountable, discuss politics or religious topics, share joyful dancing, or have public conversations on sensitive or controversial issues,” the groups said in a joint statement.

    Amer Hassan, a Baghdad court judge dealing with publishing and media issues, defended the arrests in an interview with the state Iraqi News Agency.

    “There is a confusion between freedom of expression, which is protected by the constitution” and what he called offensive content.

    Hamzeh Hadad, an adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank, said the measures could be part of an attempt to distract from Iraq’s unstable currency and to pander to the base of the conservative Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr, a rival of al-Sudani’s bloc.

    Hadad said the alcohol ban could disproportionately affect Christians and other non-Muslim religious minorities — a dwindling population in Iraq, particularly in the years since the formation of the extremist Islamic State group, which at one point controlled wide swaths of the country.

    However, Hadad noted there were also “powerful actors with financial interests in alcohol” who might legally challenge or simply flout the ban.

    Religious minorities are not the only ones pushing back against the measures.

    “I personally am a Muslim and am not with the law,” said Mohammed Jassim, a 27-year-old from Baghdad who says he drinks alcohol regularly. Now he and others like him “will be forced to purchase alcohol under the table from those who dare sell it illegally,” he said.

    Many Christians see the ban as an attempt to marginalize their community.

    In the northern Christian town of Qaraqosh, a liquor shop owner who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear his business could be targeted, said the government’s move stings, particularly in the wake of years of deadly attacks on Christians by IS militants.

    “They are telling us to get out, we don’t want you in this country anymore,” he said.

    ___

    Sewell reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Farid Abdulwahed in Qaraqosh, Iraq, contributed reporting.

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  • Bodies of 2 Mexico kidnapping victims expected to be returned to the US for further autopsies, source says | CNN

    Bodies of 2 Mexico kidnapping victims expected to be returned to the US for further autopsies, source says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The bodies of two Americans killed in an armed kidnapping in Mexico are expected to be returned to the US on Thursday, a source from the Mexico Attorney General’s Office tells CNN, after two survivors of the attack returned to the US for treatment at a hospital.

    The remains of Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown likely will be transported to a funeral home in Brownsville, Texas, a US official familiar with the investigation said. The repatriation would come two days after the bodies were discovered alongside their two surviving friends in a house around the Mexican city of Matamoros.

    Autopsies were completed Wednesday morning in Mexico, an official from the Tamaulipas Prosecutor’s Office told CNN, though Mexican authorities have not released causes of death. Second autopsies will be performed in the US, the US official said.

    CNN has reached out to the US State Department about the repatriation of remains.

    The deceased were part of a group of four friends from South Carolina who had driven Friday into Matamoros so one of them, Latavia Washington McGee, could undergo a medical procedure, two family members told CNN. But their trip was violently interrupted when unidentified gunmen fired on their van, then loaded the Americans into a vehicle and drove them away, the FBI said.

    An innocent Mexican bystander was also killed by a stray bullet almost a block and a half from where the Americans were kidnapped, according to Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal.

    Survivor Eric Williams was shot three times in the legs, his wife Michele Williams told CNN. When he and McGee were discovered alive Tuesday, Williams was taken to a hospital in Texas for surgery, she said.

    Washington McGee was also taken to the hospital, her mother, Barbara Burgess, told CNN, though Mexican authorities said she was uninjured.

    “She watched them die,” Burgess said, recounting what Washington McGee told her about the kidnapping. “They were driving through and a van came up and hit them, and that’s when they started shooting at the car, shooting inside the van. … She said the others tried to run and they got shot at the same time.”

    Washington McGee and Brown are cousins who were raised together as closely as siblings, Burgess said.

    “He was a good person, and I miss him,” Burgess said of Brown. “I loved him. (There’s) nothing I wouldn’t do for him.”

    Investigators believe the group was targeted by a Mexican cartel who mistook them for Haitian drug smugglers, a US official familiar with the investigation told CNN on Monday, and the kidnapping has renewed attention to efforts by US and Mexican officials to combat organized crime in Mexico.

    During a Wednesday news briefing held by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a government-sponsored fact-checking agency claimed reports of the Americans being mistaken for Haitian drug traffickers are false. The president said “adversaries” in Mexico and the US are attempting to make a “scandal” of the case.

    CNN has reached out to investigators in the US and Mexico, as well as the fact-checking agency.

    Mexican authorities are still investigating the kidnapping. One person, identified as 24-year-old Jose “N,” was detained when the Americans were found Tuesday, according to Villarreal, though officials would not confirm whether he is connected to a criminal organization.

    The kidnapping of the four friends on Friday spurred a days-long investigation by local and federal Mexican officials, who say they were in almost-constant contact with US authorities until the two survivors and the victims’ bodies were finally discovered.

    The four friends had booked a hotel in Brownsville, Texas, and were planning to drive to a doctor’s office in Matamoros on Friday for Washington McGee to undergo a medical procedure, a close friend who did not want to be identified told CNN.

    matamoros mexico kidnapping scene

    Video shows Americans kidnapped in Mexico being loaded into pickup truck

    At about 9:18 a.m. Friday, the group crossed into Matamoros, Villarreal said. But on their way to the clinic, the group became lost and were struggling to contact the doctor’s office for directions due to a poor phone signal, the close friend said.

    Suddenly, another vehicle collided into the group’s van and gunmen began shooting at the group, sending some of the friends running, according to Burgess, who recounted her daughter’s experience. “They all got shot at the same time,” she said.

    A video obtained by CNN shows Washington McGee being shoved onto the bed of a white pickup truck by a group of armed men, who then begin dragging at least two other limp bodies into the truck. Burgess, when asked about the video, said her daughter was treated “like trash.”

    The Americans were then taken from the scene in the vehicle, according to an FBI account of the kidnapping.

    Over the next few days, the groups was moved to several different locations to “create confusion and avoid rescue efforts,” Villarreal said.

    Meanwhile, Mexican investigators were searching for the missing group, sifting through surveillance footage and processing the vehicles and ballistics found at the scene, officials said.

    After noticing the Americans’ van had North Carolina license plates, Mexican authorities reached out to US officials, who were able to run the plates, according to Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios Mojica. They were also able to identify the gunmen’s truck, he said.

    “Several searches” were then initiated across multiple agencies, and the group was ultimately found in a “wooden house” in or near Matamoros on Tuesday morning, Villarreal said.

    Though US law enforcement were not involved in the search on the ground, federal and local agencies in Mexico were cooperating in the effort and a joint task force was created to communicate with US officials, Barrios Mojica said.

    The fatal kidnapping – and the possibility it was carried out by a cartel – has brought increased attention to ongoing efforts by US and Mexican officials to curb cartel activity that is a primary driver of the fentanyl trade between the countries.

    A US delegation traveled to Mexico this week to “discuss our governments’ ongoing cooperation in combating illicit fentanyl,” a national security council spokesman told CNN Wednesday.

    The visit comes as fentanyl – a potent synthetic opioid – fuels a record number of overdose deaths in the US, with Mexico being the “dominant source” of the drug in the US, according to a government report released last year.

    The delegation plans to address the kidnapping and discuss a “fundamental strategy to attack the cartels,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Wednesday.

    President Joe Biden promised “strong penalties to crack down on fentanyl trafficking” in his State of the Union address last month. His administration has since sanctioned several cartel members and associated groups for their participation in the drug trade.

    López Obrador said there was “good cooperation” underway between the two countries on anti-drug efforts, but resisted calls from some Republican lawmakers in the US to designate cartels as terrorist organizations, saying it would infringe on Mexican sovereignty.

    “We do not get involved in seeing what the gangs in the United States that distribute fentanyl are doing or how the drug is distributed in the United States,” López Obrador said at his daily news conference in Mexico City.

    Ongoing talks between the US and Mexico are “working in a coordinated manner with respect to sovereignty,” he said.

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  • UN report: Modern weapons being smuggled to Haiti from US

    UN report: Modern weapons being smuggled to Haiti from US

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    UNITED NATIONS — Increasingly sophisticated weapons are being trafficked into Haiti mainly from the United States and especially from Florida amid worsening lawlessness in the impoverished Caribbean nation, according to a U.N. report released Friday.

    The report by the Vienna-based Office on Drugs and Crime said a network of criminal actors including members of the Haitian diaspora “often source firearms from across the U.S.” and smuggle them into Haiti illegally by land from the neighboring Dominican Republic, by air including to clandestine airstrips, but most frequently by sea.

    “Popular handguns selling for $400-$500 at federally licensed firearms outlets or private gun shows in the U.S. can be resold for as much as $10,000 in Haiti,” the report said. “Higher-powered rifles such as AK47s, AR15s and Galils are typically in higher demand from gangs, commanding correspondingly higher prices.”

    The U.S Department of Homeland Security’s investigations unit reported “a surge in firearms trafficking from Florida to Haiti between 2021 and 2022” and a spokesman described the recovery of increasingly sophisticated weapons destined for Haitian ports “including .50 caliber sniper rifles, .308 rifles, and even belt-fed machine guns,” according to the report.

    “Weapons are frequently procured through straw man purchases in U.S. states with looser gun laws and fewer purchasing restrictions” and then transported to Florida where they are concealed inside consumer products, electronic equipment, garment linings, frozen food items and even the hull of freighters, it said. “On arrival in Haiti, including major hubs such as Port-de-Paix and Port-au-Prince, cargo is offloaded and passed on to end-users via a host of intermediaries.”

    The 47-page report, entitled “Haiti’s Criminal Markets: Mapping Trends in Firearms and Drug Trafficking,” cites the challenges of patrolling 1,771 kilometers (1,100 miles) of Haiti’s coastline and a 392-kilometer (243-mile) border with the Dominican Republic with national police, border and coast guard operations that are severely under-staffed, under-resourced and “increasingly targeted by gangs.”

    The heavily-armed gangs are also targeting ports, highways, critical infrastructure, customs offices, police stations, court houses, prisons, businesses and neighborhoods, the report said. And throughout 2022 and early 2023 they have expanded their control over key access points to cities including the capital Port-au-Prince.

    “Many are also engaged in predatory behavior in communities under their control contributing to rising levels of extortion, sexual violence, kidnapping and fatal violence,” it said, citing an increase in homicides from 1,615 in 2021 to 2,183 in 2022, and a doubling of kidnappings from 664 to 1,359 during the same period.

    The U.N. report said private security companies in Haiti are permitted to buy and keep arms, and while independent verification isn’t possible “specialists speculate that there could be 75,000 to 90,000 individuals working with roughly 100 private security companies across the country, at least five times the number of registered police officers.”

    According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Haiti has long been a trans-shipment hub to move cocaine, cannabis and to a lesser extent heroin and amphetamines to the United States and the Dominican Republic. The drugs mostly enter the country via boat or plane, arriving through public, private and informal ports as well as clandestine runways.

    During the 2000s, the report said, drug traffickers moved illegal airstrips from the outskirts of Port-au-Prince northward to more isolated areas including Savane Diane, roughly 50 miles north of the capital.

    When then-President Jovenal Moïse ordered the destruction of suspected clandestine airstrips in June 2021, UNODC said “local authorities refused.” A week later, he was assassinated.

    Since the assassination, U.N. officials said gangs have grown more powerful, and gang violence has reached a level not seen in decades. In December, the U.N. estimated that gangs controlled 60% of Haiti’s capital, but most people on the streets in Port-au-Prince say that number is closer to 100%.

    In late February, the U.N. condemned a new surge of gang violence in central Haiti.

    Haiti was stripped of all democratically elected institutions when the terms of the remaining 10 senators expired in early January. No elections are on the horizon and Prime Minister Ariel Henry continues to plead for the deployment of foreign troops, a request first made in October. The international community has instead opted to impose sanctions and send military equipment and other resources.

    ___

    On the Web: https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/toc/Haiti_assessment_UNODC.pdf

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  • Tom Sizemore, ‘Saving Private Ryan’ actor, dies at 61

    Tom Sizemore, ‘Saving Private Ryan’ actor, dies at 61

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    BURBANK, Calif. — Tom Sizemore, the “Saving Private Ryan” actor whose bright 1990s star burned out under the weight of his own domestic violence and drug convictions, died Friday at age 61.

    The actor had suffered a brain aneurysm on Feb. 18 at his home in Los Angeles. He died in his sleep Friday at a hospital in Burbank, California, his manager Charles Lago said.

    Sizemore became a star with acclaimed appearances in “Natural Born Killers” and the cult-classic crime thriller “Heat.” But serious substance dependency, abuse allegations and multiple run-ins with the law devastated his career, left him homeless and sent him to jail.

    As the global #MeToo movement wave crested in late 2017, Sizemore was also accused of groping an 11-year-old Utah girl on set in 2003. He called the allegations “highly disturbing,” saying he would never inappropriately touch a child. Charges were not filed.

    Despite the raft of legal trouble, Sizemore had scores of steady film and television credits — though his career never regained its onetime momentum. Aside from “Black Hawk Down” and “Pearl Harbor,” most of his 21st century roles came in low-budget, little-seen productions where he continued to play the gruff, tough guys he became famous for portraying.

    “I was a guy who’d come from very little and risen to the top. I’d had the multimillion-dollar house, the Porsche, the restaurant I partially owned with Robert De Niro,” the Detroit-born Sizemore wrote in his 2013 memoir, “By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There.” “And now I had absolutely nothing.”

    The book’s title was taken from a line uttered by his character in “Saving Private Ryan,” a role for which he garnered Oscar buzz. But he wrote that success turned him into a “spoiled movie star,” an “arrogant fool” and eventually “a hope-to-die addict.”

    He racked up a string of domestic violence arrests. Sizemore was married once, to actor Maeve Quinlan, and was arrested on suspicion of beating her in 1997. While the charges were dropped, the couple divorced in 1999.

    Sizemore was convicted of abusing ex-girlfriend Heidi Fleiss in 2003 — the same year he pleaded no contest and avoided trial in a separate abuse case — and sentenced to jail. The former Hollywood madam testified that he had punched her in the jaw at a Beverly Hills hotel, and beaten her in New York to the point where they couldn’t attend the “Black Hawk Down” premiere.

    The sentencing judge said drug abuse was likely a catalyst but that testimony had revealed a man who had deep problems dealing with women. Fleiss called Sizemore “a zero” in a conversation with The Associated Press after his conviction.

    Sizemore apologized in a letter, saying he was “chastened” and that “personal demons” had taken over his life, though he later denied abusing her and accused her of faking a picture showing her bruises.

    Fleiss also sued Sizemore, saying she suffered emotional distress after he threatened to get her own probation revoked. Fleiss had been convicted in 1994 of running a high-priced call-girl ring. That lawsuit was settled on undisclosed terms.

    Sizemore was the subject of two workplace sexual harassment lawsuits related to the 2002 CBS show “Robbery Homicide Division,” in which he played a police detective. He was arrested as recently as 2016 in another domestic violence case.

    Sizemore ended up jailed from August 2007 to January 2009 for failing numerous drug tests while on probation and after Bakersfield, California, authorities found methamphetamine in his car.

    “God’s trying to tell me he doesn’t want me using drugs because every time I use them I get caught,” Sizemore told The Bakersfield Californian in a jailhouse interview.

    Sizemore told the AP in 2013 that he believed his dependency was related to the trappings of success. He struggled to maintain his emotional composure as he described a low point looking in the mirror: “I looked like I was 100 years old. I had no relationship with my kids; I had no work to speak off. I was living in squat.”

    He appeared on the reality TV show “Celebrity Rehab” and its spinoff “Sober House,” telling the AP that he did the shows to receive help, but also partly to pay off accumulated debts that ran into the millions.

    Many of Sizemore’s later-career films had a sci-fi, horror or action bent: In 2022 alone, he starred in movies with such titles as “Impuratus,” “Night of the Tommyknockers” and “Vampfather.” But Sizemore still nabbed a few meaty roles — including in the “Twin Peaks” revival — and guest spots on popular shows like “Entourage” and “Hawaii Five-O.”

    A stuntman sued Sizemore and Paramount Pictures in 2016, saying he was injured when the allegedly intoxicated actor ran him over while filming USA’s “Shooter.” State records obtained by the AP showed that Sizemore was only supposed to be sitting in the unmoving car and that he “improvised at the end of the scene and drove away in his car.” Sizemore was fired from “Shooter” and the stuntman’s lawsuit was settled on undisclosed terms.

    In addition to his film and TV credits, he was part of the voice cast for 2002’s “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” video game. He also taught classes at the LA West Acting Studio, according to recent advertisements.

    He is survived by his 17-year-old twin sons, Jayden and Jagger, and his brother Paul, all of whom were by his side when he died.

    “I’ve led an interesting life, but I can’t tell you what I’d give to be the guy you didn’t know anything about,” Sizemore wrote in his memoir.

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  • Florida prosecutor faces scrutiny after TV crew attack

    Florida prosecutor faces scrutiny after TV crew attack

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    ORLANDO, Fla. — ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) —

    Fresh off removing one Democratic prosecutor, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is eyeing another over how she handled cases involving a suspect charged with fatally shooting a TV reporter, a 9-year-old girl and a woman last week.

    DeSantis’ general counsel sent a letter earlier this week to State Attorney Monique Worrell seeking documents and emails about the prior arrests and prosecution decisions involving 19-year-old Keith Moses, both as juvenile and an adult. Juvenile records are typically kept private in Florida.

    The request from the governor’s office comes as DeSantis fights against what he calls “woke” prosecutors, bolstering his conservative criminal justice platform ahead of an expected run for president.

    DeSantis last year removed State Attorney Andrew Warren, a twice elected Democrat in Tampa, over his signing of pledges that said he would not pursue criminal charges against seekers or providers of abortion or gender transition treatments, as well as policies about not bringing charges for certain low-level crimes.

    In the letter to Worrell, whose jurisdiction covers the Orlando area, DeSantis general counsel Ryan Newman said her office failed to hold Moses accountable, “despite his extensive criminal history and gang affiliation.”

    The letter noted that Moses was arrested during a traffic stop in November 2021 for cannabis possession. According to a police report, a deputy witnessed a gun being thrown out the car window as it was being pulled over. The three occupants had ski masks and past firearm charges, including Moses who was on juvenile felony probation.

    The Orange County Sheriff’s Office deputy charged Moses with a drug offense and not a firearm offense. The case was dismissed the following month after prosecutors concluded it wasn’t suitable to pursue.

    “Moses should never have been in a position to commit those senseless crimes of last week,” Newman’s letter said.

    In response, Worrell said the letter from the governor’s office was full of misconceptions. There wasn’t conclusive evidence that Moses was illegally in possession of marijuana, said Worrell.

    “The suggestions and accusations that my office’s ‘policies’ promote crime are empty political statements unsupported by actual facts,” Worrell said in a statement.

    Moses is facing three first-degree murder charges for last week’s fatal shootings of Spectrum News 13 report Dylan Lyons, Nathacha Augustin and 9-year-old T’yonna Major. Also shot were the girl’s mother and Spectrum News 13 photographer Jesse Walden.

    In his executive order suspending Warren, the Tampa prosecutor, DeSantis cited state law that allows him to remove officials for neglect of duty and incompetence.

    Warren has said the pledges amounted to personal political positions and that his office had applied prosecutorial discretion over whether to bring charges in all cases. He has launched a legal battle in federal and state court to get his job back.

    ___

    Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at @MikeSchneiderAP

    Follow Anthony Izaguirre on Twitter at @_aizaguirre

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  • Missouri legalized recreational marijuana. Will its federal lawmakers represent weed shops? | National – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

    Missouri legalized recreational marijuana. Will its federal lawmakers represent weed shops? | National – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

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    WASHINGTON — If you sell marijuana in Missouri, even legally, there’s always the worry of getting robbed.

    Because of the drug’s illegal status at the federal level, most cannabis businesses can’t accept credit card payments from customers, resulting in a lot of cash payments.

    “Without credit cards, dispensaries operate, very cash heavy,” said Nate Ruby, the president of Illicit Gardens, a Kansas City area cannabis business. “Which forces them to have a lot of cash on hand, which can result in higher potential for robberies.”

    That means heightened security at dispensaries, including cameras to make sure the businesses are safe.

    It’s one of the many realities of the cannabis businesses operating amid uncertainty in a relatively young industry where they’re constitutionally protected in their home state while still considered illegal by the federal government. But while Missouri marijuana businesses straddle the line between locally legal and federally illicit, it hasn’t won them the support of the state’s mostly Republican congressional delegation.

    Ruby’s cannabis company’s name is Illicit for a reason — it’s intended to draw attention to his product’s legal status and people who have been imprisoned for nonviolent cannabis crimes.

    Nearly 30 years ago, states began the process of legalizing marijuana. It started with…

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  • More than 4.5 million fentanyl pills, 3,000 pounds of methamphetamine seized in Arizona investigation, DEA says | CNN

    More than 4.5 million fentanyl pills, 3,000 pounds of methamphetamine seized in Arizona investigation, DEA says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Arizona authorities targeting the Sinaloa drug cartel have seized narcotics estimated to be worth more than $13 million, including more than 4.5 million fentanyl pills, 3,100 pounds of methamphetamine and large quantities of heroin, cocaine and fentanyl powder, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

    In a news release, the agency said the seizure was the culmination of a three-year-long investigation during which 150 people had so far been charged.

    “The fentanyl seized represents more than 30 million potentially lethal doses,” the DEA said, announcing the seizure in partnership with the Tempe Police Department and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.

    Authorities displayed some of the recovered narcotics at a joint news conference Thursday, attended by CNN affiliate KNXV.

    “The sample you see here today is staggering. There are over 4.5 million fentanyl pills, over 140 pounds of fentanyl powder, over 135 kilos of cocaine, over 3,000 pounds of methamphetamine, 35 kilos of heroin, 49 firearms and over $2 million in cash,” Interim Tempe Police Chief Josie Montenegro told reporters.

    Montenegro said the substances recovered “would be poisoning members of our community, including our youth and vulnerable population,” had the seizures not been made.

    “In addition, the dangers and crimes associated with illegal drugs would be plaguing our community,” Montenegro added.

    According to authorities, “numerous” people were taken into custody in the bust. At this time, authorities do not plan on releasing the names of those involved because it is a continuing investigation, according to Montenegro.

    Phoenix DEA Special Agent in Charge Cheri Oz said investigators are “laser-focused” on the Sinaloa cartel.

    “I want to be crystal clear, the drugs in this room and the drugs that are flooding Arizona every single day are sourced primarily by one evil as the Sinaloa drug cartel,” she said at the news conference. “We are laser-focused on the Sinaloa drug cartel and we will defeat them. We will not stop.”

    Oz also praised the efforts of DEA agents and other officers over the last three years. “Their hard work and tenacity is responsible for removing these deadly drugs before they poisoned our family, our friends and our neighborhoods,” she said.

    The country is struggling with a decades-long opioid epidemic in which fentanyl has become the most commonly used drug involved in overdoses.

    Pharmaceutical fentanyl is a synthetic opioid intended to help patients manage severe pain. It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, and typically prescribed in the form of skin patches or lozenges. But most recent cases of fentanyl-related harm, overdose, and death in the United States are linked to illegally made fentanyl, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Deaths involving synthetic opioids increased by 22% in 2021, according to CDC data, and in 2022, there were about 181,806 nonfatal opioid overdoses recorded in the United States.

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  • Inadequate investigation? Takeaways at Murdaugh murder trial

    Inadequate investigation? Takeaways at Murdaugh murder trial

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    Investigators like to say the crime scene at a killing tells the story even if no one else does.

    In the double murder trial of disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, his defense lawyers want jurors to believe the crime scene can’t tell them much about the deaths of his wife and son because state agents did a poor job investigating.

    Murdaugh, 54, is accused of killing his wife, Maggie, 52, and their 22-year-old son, Paul, at kennels near their home on June 7, 2021, as the once-prominent attorney’s career and finances were crumbling. Murdaugh has denied any role in the fatal shootings. He faces 30 years to life if convicted.

    Here are some key takeaways from the 61 prosecution and 11 defense witnesses called so far in the five-week trial, including Murdaugh himself.

    CRIME SCENE PROBLEMS

    The defense has called experts who said investigators didn’t dust for fingerprints, collect and test blood, or photograph evidence with the angles or clarity needed to study it properly later.

    The first officer arrived at the rural Colleton County estate 20 minutes after Murdaugh called 911 when he returned home from visiting his ailing mother. Almost immediately, the local sheriff realized he was dealing with someone whose family dominated the legal system in neighboring Hampton County for generations and turned the investigation over to the State Law Enforcement Division.

    It took hours for agents from across the state to get deep into the South Carolina Lowcountry. During that time, more than a dozen family and friends walked around the scene, comforting Murdaugh. The bodies of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh were covered with a sheet, which can absorb fluid, instead of a tarp. Then the sheet wasn’t saved, meaning possible hair or DNA from a killer could have been lost. Intermittent rain fell and the runoff from the kennel roof fell on Paul Murdaugh’s covered body.

    “It’s a crime scene. You don’t want water dripping all over the place. But more importantly, I thought it was pretty disrespectful,” Murdaugh’s former law partner Mark Ball testified.

    When state agents arrived, they sent Murdaugh and his entourage to the home. Witnesses testified it hadn’t been searched for weapons, bloody clothes and other evidence or even checked to see if a suspect was hiding inside.

    Prosecutors have little direct evidence of Murdaugh’s guilt. The weapons used in the killings have not been found. There’s no blood-spattered clothes or surveillance video.

    Prosecutor John Meadors told one of the experts that the investigators did the best they could under the circumstances.

    “You’re being paid to come in here and say they did a bad job,” Meadors said.

    STAR WITNESS

    He was the 72nd witness of the five-week trial. But everyone perked up Thursday when Alex Murdaugh headed to the witness stand.

    His defense team wasted no time. Their first questions were whether he killed his wife or son.

    “I did not kill Maggie, and I did not kill Paul. I would never hurt Maggie, and I would never hurt Paul — ever — under any circumstances,” Murdaugh said.

    Murdaugh admitted he lied for the 20 months when he told police, his family and anyone else who asked that he was not at the kennels before he found the bodies of his wife and son there. A video on his son’s iPhone, shot minutes before prosecutors think the killings happened, recorded Alex Murdaugh’s voice. It took state agents more than a year to hack into the phone and find it.

    In cross-examination, Murdaugh admitted he stole from clients and his law firm, likely sealing his fate for many of the 100 other charges he faces ranging from theft to insurance fraud to tax evasion.

    “I took money that wasn’t mine. And I shouldn’t have done it. I hate the fact that I did it. I am embarrassed by it. I’m embarrassed for my son. I am embarrassed for my family,” Murdaugh said.

    COUSIN EDDIE

    Outside of Murdaugh and his family, no potential witness has piqued the interest of trial watchers like Curtis “Eddie” Smith.

    “Cousin Eddie,” as many have taken to calling him, was the person Murdaugh said he called when he wanted someone to kill him three months after the deaths of his wife and son.

    The fatal shot only grazed Murdaugh’s head. Smith told reporters that the gun fired as they wrestled over the weapon and if he had shot intentionally at Murdaugh, he wouldn’t have missed.

    Smith and Murdaugh met about a decade ago when Smith needed a lawyer for a workers’ compensation case. Investigators said they ran a drug and money laundering ring together with Smith cashing checks to help Murdaugh hide money he was stealing from clients.

    In the end, both prosecutors and defense attorneys appear to have decided Smith could hurt their cases as much as help them.

    Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian said Smith had six different explanations for shooting Murdaugh “and any other information you ask him about.”

    But earlier this month as prosecutors and Harpootlian discussed with the judge whether Smith would testify, the feisty defense attorney lamented Smith might not be called.

    “The cross-examination of Mr. Smith is something I am looking forward to,” Harpootlian said.

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  • ‘Dances With Wolves’ actor indicted in Nevada sex abuse case

    ‘Dances With Wolves’ actor indicted in Nevada sex abuse case

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    LAS VEGAS — Charges are mounting against a “Dances With Wolves” actor who is accused of sexually abusing and trafficking Indigenous women and girls in the U.S. and Canada for decades.

    A grand jury in Nevada indicted Nathan Chasing Horse on Wednesday on 19 counts, expanding on previous charges of sexual assault, trafficking and child abuse to include kidnapping, lewdness and drug trafficking. Chasing Horse, 46, now faces charges in four jurisdictions, with the newest case brought by prosecutors on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana.

    Police in Las Vegas have described Chasing Horse as a cult leader who used his position as a self-proclaimed medicine man to gain access to Indigenous girls and women, who he physically and sexually assaulted and took as underage wives. Prosecutors also accused him of grooming young girls to replace his older wives. His followers in the cult known as The Circle believed he had healing powers and could communicate with higher beings.

    Chasing Horse’s public defender, Kristy Holston, told The Associated Press that she was looking forward to revealing holes in the state’s case during a preliminary hearing that was canceled Wednesday morning ahead of the indictment. She declined to elaborate.

    “Since the public is so interested in this case and because only select details of the accusations have been released, we think it would be most appropriate for the State to present their evidence in a public hearing where the defense can reveal the weaknesses of the State’s case on the record in court,” she said in an email.

    Holston didn’t immediately respond Wednesday afternoon for comment on the additional charges filed against her client. An arraignment is scheduled March 1 in Clark County District Court.

    Chasing Horse has declined multiple requests from the AP for an interview from the Las Vegas jail where he’s being held on a $300,000 bond.

    Born on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Chasing Horse is widely known for his role as Smiles a Lot in Kevin Costner’s 1990 Oscar-winning film, “Dances With Wolves.” He was arrested Jan. 31 near the North Las Vegas home he shared with his five wives.

    Authorities searched the home and found firearms, psilocybin mushrooms, 41 pounds of marijuana and two cellphones containing videos and photos of underage girls being sexually assaulted, according to an arrest report.

    The footage of the assaults led to federal child pornography charges in U.S. District Court in Nevada.

    Chasing Horse’s arrest in Nevada was the culmination of a monthslong investigation by Las Vegas police. According to court documents, police uncovered a pattern of sexual abuse and alleged crimes dating back to the 2000s across multiple states, including Montana and South Dakota, as well as Canada, where he’s been charged with a 2018 rape in British Columbia.

    Earlier this month, prosecutors with the Fort Peck Tribes in Montana charged Chasing Horse with one count of aggravated sexual assault in connection with a 2005 rape, according to a warrant obtained by the AP.

    Ken Trottier, a tribal court criminal investigator, said Wednesday that two teenage girls at the time had accused Chasing Horse of rape. The investigation was closed, Trottier said, because the girls’ statements couldn’t be corroborated.

    That changed after Chasing Horse was arrested in Nevada, Trottier said, with more evidence that allowed Fort Peck to pursue a criminal case.

    It’s unlikely, though, that Chasing Horse will ever appear in tribal court, Trottier said. Tribal leaders banished him from the reservation nearly a decade ago amid allegations of human trafficking.

    “We don’t ever expect him to return here,” Trottier told the AP. “If he ever steps foot on our reservation, he will be hunted.”

    Trottier said Wednesday that he hopes federal prosecutors in Montana will step in, allowing for stiffer penalties if Chasing Horse is charged and convicted of any crime on the reservation — where federal authorities have concurrent jurisdiction when the victim and suspect are both Native American.

    “I will probably never have the satisfaction of being able to put handcuffs on him,” Trottier said, “but at least we’re able to help the Las Vegas case and other investigations.”

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  • Mexico’s ex-public security chief convicted in US drug case

    Mexico’s ex-public security chief convicted in US drug case

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    NEW YORK — A former Mexican presidential cabinet member was convicted in the U.S. on Tuesday of taking massive bribes to protect the violent drug cartels he was tasked with combating.

    Under tight security, an anonymous New York federal court jury deliberated for three days before reaching a verdict in the drug trafficking case against ex-Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna.

    He is the highest-ranking current or former Mexican official ever to be tried in the United States.

    “García Luna, who once stood at the pinnacle of law enforcement in Mexico, will now live the rest of his days having been revealed as a traitor to his country and to the honest members of law enforcement who risked their lives to dismantle drug cartels,” Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.

    García Luna, who denied the allegations, headed Mexico’s federal police and was later the country’s top public safety official from 2006 to 2012. His lawyers said the charges were based on lies from criminals who wanted to punish his drug-fighting efforts and to get sentencing breaks for themselves by helping prosecutors.

    He showed no apparent reaction on hearing the verdict. His lawyer, César de Castro, said that the defense planned to appeal and that the case lacked “credible and reliable evidence.”

    “The government was forced to settle for a case built on the backs of some of the most notorious and ruthless criminals to have testified in this courthouse,” de Castro said outside court.

    García Luna, 54, was convicted on charges that include engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. He faces at least 20 years and as much as life in prison at his sentencing, set for June 27.

    The case had political ramifications on both sides of the border.

    Current Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has railed throughout the trial against ex-President Felipe Calderón’s administration for, at a minimum, putting García Luna in charge of Mexico’s security. López Obrador spokesperson Jesús Ramírez tweeted after the verdict that “justice has come” to a Calderón ally and that “the crimes committed against our people will never be forgotten.”

    García Luna’s work also introduced him to high-level American politicians and other officials, who considered him a key cartel-fighting partner as Washington embarked on a $1.6 billion push to beef up Mexican law enforcement and stem the flow of drugs.

    The Americans weren’t accused of wrongdoing, and although suspicions long swirled around García Luna, the trial didn’t delve into the extent of U.S. officials’ knowledge about them before his 2019 arrest. López Obrador has, however, pointedly suggested that Washington investigate its own law enforcement and intelligence officials who worked with García Luna during Calderón’s administration.

    A roster of ex-smugglers and former Mexican officials testified that García Luna took millions of dollars in cartel cash, met with major traffickers in settings ranging from a country house to a car wash and kept law enforcement at bay.

    He was “the best investment they had,” said Sergio “El Grande” Villarreal Barragan, a former federal police officer who worked for cartels on the side and later as his main job.

    He and other witnesses said that on García Luna’s watch, police tipped off traffickers about upcoming raids, ensured that cocaine could pass freely through the country, colluded with cartels to raid rivals, and did other favors. One ex-smuggler said García Luna shared a document that reflected U.S. law enforcement’s information about a huge cocaine shipment that was seized in Mexico around 2007.

    One ex-smuggler, Óscar “El Lobo” Nava Valencia, said he personally heard García Luna and a then-top police official say they would “stand with us” during a meeting with notorious Sinaloa cocaine cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman’s associates amid a cartel civil war. That sit-down alone cost the drug gang $3 million, Nava Valencia said.

    García Luna didn’t testify at the trial, although his wife took the stand in an apparent effort to portray their assets in Mexico as legitimately acquired and upper-middle-class, but not lavish. The couple moved to Miami in 2012, when the Mexican administration changed and he became a consultant on security issues.

    The trial was peppered with glimpses of such narco-extravagances as a private zoo with a lion, a hippo, white tigers and more. Jurors heard about tons of cocaine moving through Latin America in shipping containers, go-fast boats, private jets, planes, trains and even submarines.

    And there were horrific reminders of the extraordinary violence those drugs fueled.

    Witnesses described cartel killings and kidnappings, allegedly including an abduction of García Luna himself. There was testimony about police officers being slaughtered and drug-world rivals being dismembered, skinned and dangled from bridges as cartel factions fought each other while buying police protection.

    Testimony also aired a secondhand claim that Calderón, the former president, sought to shield Guzmán against a major rival; Calderón called the allegation “absurd” and “an absolute lie.”

    García Luna was arrested after allegations of his alleged graft emerged at Guzman’s high-profile trial about four years ago in the same New York courthouse.

    The former lawman also faces various Mexican arrest warrants and charges relating to government technology contracts, prison contracting and the bungled U.S. “Fast and Furious” investigation into suspicions that guns were illegally making their way from the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels. The Mexican government has also filed a civil suit against García Luna and his alleged associates and businesses in Florida, seeking to recover $700 million that Mexico claims he garnered through corruption.

    Anticorruption activists gathered outside the courthouse to celebrate Tuesday’s verdict.

    “My country is a grave. It’s now a cemetery … thanks to the corruption,” said Carmen Paes, who blamed drug lords in her native Mexico for the disappearance of a nephew decades ago.

    ___

    Associated Press writer María Verza contributed from Mexico City.

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  • Genaro García Luna, former Mexican public security secretary, convicted in US of taking bribes from drug cartels | CNN

    Genaro García Luna, former Mexican public security secretary, convicted in US of taking bribes from drug cartels | CNN

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former public security secretary and architect of its deadly and protracted war on drugs, was found guilty in federal court in New York on Tuesday of taking bribes from the drug cartels he had sworn to combat, the US Attorney’s Office said.

    The former Secretary of Public Security in Mexico, who served from 2006 to 2012, was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn on five counts of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, including international cocaine distribution conspiracy, conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine, conspiracy to import cocaine and making false statements, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

    He is the highest-ranking current or former Mexican official ever tried in the United States.

    His trial before US District Judge Brian M. Cogan, who also oversaw the trial of former Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, lasted four weeks. The Court of the Eastern District of New York jury announced the verdict after 15 days of hearings and having heard the testimony of 27 witnesses.

    García Luna, 54, pleaded not guilty to all charges and can appeal the ruling.

    He will be sentenced June 27. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years’ in prison and a maximum of life behind bars.

    “Garcia Luna, who once stood at the pinnacle of law enforcement in Mexico, will now live the rest of his days having been revealed as a traitor to his country and to the honest members of law enforcement who risked their lives to dismantle drug cartels,” Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said in a statement.

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  • Agent: Alex Murdaugh wanted to die after wife, son killed

    Agent: Alex Murdaugh wanted to die after wife, son killed

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    Alex Murdaugh and a friend spent just minutes planning a failed attempt to fatally shoot the lawyer on a lonely South Carolina roadside so his son could collect a multimillion-dollar life insurance policy, months after his wife and other son were shot to death, according to testimony Thursday in his double murder trial.

    But the shot from a former client who turned into his drug dealer only grazed Murdaugh’s head, a state agent testified .

    That ruined Murdaugh’s plan to make his death look like a robbery or revenge killing so his surviving son could collect his $10 million life insurance policy, according to an interview with Murdaugh and that the state agent played Thursday at this trial.

    What in court is referred to as the “roadside shooting” is just the latest trial-in-a-trial in the murder proceedings against Murdaugh in the deaths of his wife Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and their 22-year-old son Paul Murdaugh. Their bodies were found June 7, 2021, at their Colleton County home.

    Alex Murdaugh, 54, faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted of murder.

    Judge Clifton Newman allowed testimony about the roadside shooting after the defense cross examination of a previous witness mentioned the former client, Curtis “Eddie” Smith, and how he might have kept some money Murdaugh intended to pay drug dealers for himself — and whether that might have led to the killings.

    Prosecutors want to use the story to demonstrate that Murdaugh lies until he gets caught and has a pattern of solving problems with violence. The last trial-in-a-trial lasted several days and concerned Murdaugh stealing from clients and his family law firm.

    The shooting marked the public start to Murdaugh’s downfall. Days later, his law firm said they fired him for stealing.

    Eventually, Murdaugh would end up facing about 100 other criminal charges from insurance fraud for the roadside shooting, to theft, money laundering, drug dealing and tax evasion. He has yet to stand trial on those other charges.

    In the interview with State Law Enforcement Division agent Ryan Kelly about a week after the roadside shooting, Murdaugh said he had just talked to one of his best friends “about everything I had done … finances, pills, lies” on Sept. 4, 2021, and was in a bad place.

    Murdaugh said he called Smith and that they met in the parking lot of a gas station.

    “I told him this was getting ready to get really bad and I would be better off not here and I asked him to shoot me,” Murdaugh said.

    Someone in the interview asked for Smith’s response.

    “At first he was a little surprised and then he said ‘OK,’” Murdaugh said.

    Murdaugh gave his friend a pistol and drove to a lonely spot on a rural road. He punctured his tire and then waited. Smith pulled up, and Murdaugh said he didn’t look at him.

    “I stood close to the car and he shot me,” Murdaugh said. “He missed and hit me in the very back of the head.”

    Murdaugh first said he was shot by someone passing by as he tried to change the tire, even describing the alleged assailant in detail so a state agent could create a composite drawing.

    “I apologize to you for lying in the hospital. I was in a very bad place,” Murdaugh told the agent.

    Kelly told Murdaugh several times that he couldn’t believe he didn’t pay Smith to kill him. Murdaugh insisted it was a favor.

    Murdaugh explained how he gave Smith money to buy drugs, maybe $50,000 a week and how he had been addicted to opioids for two decades.

    “Where were those funds coming from?” Kelly asked.

    “Let’s say most of them were not legitimately obtained,” Murdaugh’s attorney Dick Harpootlian responded.

    “Mr. Murdaugh is independently wealthy,” Kelly said.

    “Not any more,” Harpootlian responded.

    Earlier Thursday, a crime scene expert testified that a mark on Maggie Murdaugh’s thigh appeared to be tread from a golf cart tire that she fell on after she was shot near dog kennels on the family’s property. Defense lawyers had asked several witnesses about the blemish and whether it could be a mark from a shoe.

    Most of Kenny Kinsey’s testimony matched evidence presented by other witnesses about the brutality of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh’s deaths.

    Maggie Murdaugh was shot four or five times with an automatic rifle just outside the kennels, while her son was shot twice with a shotgun inside a long closet where dog food and other supplies were kept.

    Much of the focus of the questioning was about Paul Murdaugh’s wounds, especially the second fatal shot that traveled at a steeper, upward angle from just above his waist and through his head.

    Harpootlian used a ruler, protector and easel to draw the position of the shot and demonstrated with a shotgun the odd position the gun had to be in for that fatal shot. The weapons used in the killings have not been recovered.

    Harpootlian’s point was to show jurors that the shooter would have either been squatting or holding the shotgun with its powerful kickback at an odd angle.

    Or, “the shooter was a very short person?” asked Harpootlian, who represents the 6-foot-4 (1.93-meter) Murdaugh.

    Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters illustrated Maggie Murdaugh’s wounds by getting on his hands and knees on the courtroom floor as Kinsey used a wooden rod to show the direction of the shots.

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  • ‘Does that mean that I am a suspect?’ Footage shows investigator asking Alex Murdaugh if he killed his wife and son | CNN

    ‘Does that mean that I am a suspect?’ Footage shows investigator asking Alex Murdaugh if he killed his wife and son | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: The HBO docuseries “Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty” chronicles the family’s influence in South Carolina. It airs on CNN Sunday, February 19, at 8 p.m. ET.



    CNN
     — 

    The jury in Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial saw footage Wednesday from a crucial interview he had with state investigators where he was asked for the first time if he killed his wife and son.

    The interview on August 11, 2021, was the third Murdaugh had with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, which was investigating the murders of his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and grown son, Paul Murdaugh, two months earlier, according to testimony Wednesday by SLED agent Lt. David Owen.

    The interview was about to end when Owen told Murdaugh he had “a few more questions.”

    “Did you kill Maggie?” Owen asked, according to the footage played in court.

    “No,” Murdaugh said. “Did I kill my wife? No, David.”

    “Do you know who did?”

    “No, I do not know who did,” Murdaugh said.

    “Did you kill Paul?”

    “No, I did not kill Paul,” Murdaugh said.

    “Do you know who did?”

    “No, sir, I do not know who did,” Murdaugh said. “Do you think I killed Maggie?”

    “I have to go where the evidence and the facts take me,” Owen said.

    “I understand that. And you think I killed Paul?”

    “I have to go where the evidence and the facts take me,” Owen said again. “And I don’t have anything that points to anybody else at this time.”

    “So does that mean that I am a suspect?”

    Owen told Murdaugh he was “still in this,” adding, “I have to put my beliefs aside, and go with the facts.”

    Owen’s testimony Wednesday comes as the state nears the end of its case, in which prosecutors contend Murdaugh killed his wife and son to distract from a mountain of alleged financial crimes he had committed and to stave off a “day of reckoning” when those crimes might come to light.

    The defense maintains Murdaugh – who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the killings – was a loving father and husband who called 911 the night of the killings after he found his wife and son shot at the family’s estate in Islandton, South Carolina, a property known as Moselle.

    At the time of the August 11, 2021, interview, Murdaugh was “the only known suspect” in the murders, Owen testified Wednesday.

    The case was transferred that same day from the local solicitor to the Attorney General’s Office, which has been prosecuting the case due to the Murdaugh family’s long ties with the local solicitor: Three generations of Murdaughs served as the 14th Circuit Solicitor over about 87 years.

    Murdaugh’s statements during the August 2021 interview were voluntary, Owen testified Wednesday. Murdaugh wanted to ask SLED agents questions about the investigation, Owen said, and the agent told him he wanted to ask Murdaugh some questions, too. Murdaugh indicated he was comfortable answering the agents’ questions.

    Murdaugh claimed to law enforcement he last saw Maggie and Paul earlier in the evening of the murders. They ate dinner together before Murdaugh took a nap and then drove to Almeda to visit his mother. He discovered the bodies of his wife and son, he said, when he returned home and called 911 at 10:07 p.m.

    The footage played in court Wednesday showed SLED agents confronting Murdaugh about evidence that appeared to contradict his earlier statements to law enforcement.

    It was the first time, Owen testified, that Murdaugh was confronted with the fact that Paul’s friend, Rogan Gibson, said he heard Murdaugh’s voice in the background of a phone call he had with Paul that night, shortly before the murders took place.

    “You were heard in the background, and that was prior to 9 p.m. … Was it you?” Owen asked Murdaugh, per the footage shown in court Tuesday.

    “At nine o’clock? No, sir,” Murdaugh said, “not if my times are right.”

    “Who do you think it could have been?”

    “I have no idea.”

    “And Rogan’s been around your family for pretty much all his life,” Owen said, something Murdaugh agreed with. “And he recognizes your voice, and you have a distinct voice. Can you think of anybody else that has a voice similar to yours that he may have misinterpreted?”

    “No, sir.”

    Months later, investigators discovered a video on Paul’s phone that he filmed immediately after that call, at 8:44 p.m. in the area of the family’s dog kennels, near where the bodies were found. Multiple witnesses at trial have identified Murdaugh’s voice, along with Maggie’s and Paul’s, in that video, contradicting Murdaugh’s statements to investigators he had not gone to the kennels before finding the bodies.

    The footage played Wednesday also showed the agents confront Murdaugh about another piece of footage filmed by Paul the night of the killings: A Snapchat video showing Murdaugh looking at a sapling on the family’s property. In it, Murdaugh is seen wearing pants and a blue shirt. But later, he was wearing shorts and a white T-shirt.

    “There’s a video on Paul’s phone of you and him on the farm that night. You’re wearing khaki pants and a dress shirt … When I met you that night, you were in shorts and a T-shirt,” Owen said. “At what point in the evening did you change clothes?”

    “I’m not sure,” Murdaugh said. “What time of day was that? I would have thought I would have already changed.”

    Testimony in recent days similarly undermined statements Murdaugh made to SLED during the August 2021 interview – namely, that Maggie decided to go to Moselle the night of the killings because she was worried about him and his father, whose health was deteriorating.

    Two witnesses disagree: On Tuesday, Maggie’s sister testified it was Murdaugh who wanted Maggie to come to Moselle. Maggie was staying in the family’s Edisto Beach property and did not want to go to Islandton, Marian Proctor said, recalling a conversation they had the day of the murders.

    Proctor encouraged Maggie to go, she said, breaking down in court.

    Blanca Simpson, a family housekeeper, similarly testified last week that Maggie told her the day of the murders that Alex had asked both Maggie and Paul to come to Moselle that night.

    During cross-examination, defense attorney Jim Griffin noted that investigators had the Snapchat video in July, but did not ask Murdaugh about the whereabouts of the blue shirt and pants he was seen wearing in that footage. Owen testified that he never asked Murdaugh for those clothes.

    “And the reason you didn’t, (was because) you weren’t concerned about those clothes. Your investigation had been focused since early June on the T-shirt he was wearing, the shorts he was wearing and shoes he was wearing at the time he called 911,” Griffin said.

    “Yes,” Owen replied.

    Owen testified that he had told a county grand jury that an expert found multiple particles of blood spatter on the front of the T-shirt, and it was sent to a lab for testing. The test, however, found no blood on the shirt.

    “Y’all completely overlooked the fact that when you did a HemaTrace test to confirm whether there’s blood, it came up negative. Wasn’t that overlooked?” asked Griffin.

    “I had never seen that report,” responded Owen, who admitted he did not see it until November 2022, just months before the trial began.

    “Whoever killed Maggie and Paul would likely have biological material on them from the blasts that killed the two victims, right?,” Griffin asked Owen.

    “They would have some, yes,” Owen answered.

    Griffin established that Murdaugh’s mother’s property in Almeda was not searched until months after the killings, in September 2021. No weapons were found on that property, Owen testified.

    Owen also testified that nearby waterways and the route from Moselle to Almeda was “driven several times,” but not walked over.

    At one point Wednesday, Judge Clifton Newman ruled against allowing testimony about a roadside shooting that injured Murdaugh in September 2021. Authorities have alleged that Murdaugh arranged for another man, Curtis Edward Smith, to shoot him so his surviving son could obtain millions of dollars in life insurance.

    But the judge later Wednesday decided to allow that testimony after Smith was brought up during Owen’s cross-examination.

    Griffin seemed to suggest the killings could have been related to a money dispute with a drug gang, telling the court that Murdaugh was buying $50,000 worth of drugs each week from Smith. Owen agreed, testifying that he has been told the same.

    Griffin said Smith owed a lot of money to a drug gang, and Owen testified that he was told the gang was not worried about the money because it knew it was going to get paid.

    Owen testified that Smith was brought into the investigation on September 4, 2021, the day of the roadside incident. Before that, Murdaugh had never mentioned his involvement with Smith in relation to Maggie’s and Paul’s killings, according to Owen.

    “Prior to that day, had Alex Murdaugh ever mentioned to you Curtis Edward Smith or anyone else that might have been involved in his son’s or his wife’s murder?” prosecutor John Meadors asked.

    “No, sir,” responded Owen.

    Asked if a cell phone analysis had been performed to see if any of the drug gang members were in the area the night of the killings, Owen said drug gang members typically use burner phones, and he didn’t have their phone numbers. But state investigators performed an analysis around Moselle and had identified only first responders as coming to the scene, Owen said.

    The defense attorney also asked Owen if any DNA analysis had been done to match a small amount of unknown male DNA found under Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernail. Owen said no.

    The drug investigation is ongoing, Owen testified.

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  • Judge vacates conviction of man imprisoned nearly 3 decades

    Judge vacates conviction of man imprisoned nearly 3 decades

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    ST. LOUIS — A Missouri judge on Tuesday overturned the conviction of a man who has served nearly 28 years of a life sentence for a killing that he has always said he didn’t commit.

    Lamar Johnson, 50, closed his eyes and shook his head slightly as a member of his legal team patted him on the back when Circuit Judge David Mason issued his ruling. In coming to his decision, Mason explained that there had to be “reliable evidence of actual innocence — evidence so reliable that it actually passes the standard of clear and convincing.”

    Johnson walked free after he was processed out at the courthouse. Beaming, he walked up to reporters in the courthouse lobby about two hours after the ruling and thanked everyone who worked on his case, as well as the judge.

    “This is unbelievable,” said Johnson, who didn’t take any questions.

    St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who filed a motion in August seeking Johnson’s release after an investigation her office conducted with help from the Innocence Project convinced her he was telling the truth, applauded the ruling.

    “Mr. Lamar Johnson. Thank you. You’re free,” she said before the gathered press.

    Gardner said this is a time for Johnson to spend with his attorneys and family.

    “This is Valentine’s Day and this is historical,” she said.

    The Republican-led state attorney general’s office fought to keep Johnson locked up. A spokeswoman for the office, Madeline Sieren, said in an email that the office will take no further action in the case. She again defended the office’s push to keep Johnson behind bars.

    “As he stated when he was sworn in, Attorney General (Andrew) Bailey is committed to enforcing the laws as written,” Sieren wrote. “Our office defended the rule of law and worked to uphold the original verdict that a jury of Johnson’s peers deemed to be appropriate based on the facts presented at trial.”

    Johnson’s attorneys blasted the state attorney general’s office after the hearing, saying it “never stopped claiming Lamar was guilty and was comfortable to have him languish and die in prison.”

    “Yet, when this State’s highest law enforcement office could hide from a courtroom no more, it presented nothing to challenge the overwhelming body of evidence that the circuit attorney and Lamar Johnson had amassed,” they said in a statement.

    Johnson plans to reconnect with his family and enjoy experiences he was denied for most of his adult life while locked up, his lawyers said.

    “While today brings joy, nothing can restore all that the state stole from him. Nothing will give him back the nearly three decades he lost while separated from his daughters and family,” they said. “The evidence that proved his innocence was available at his trial, but it was kept hidden or ignored by those who saw no value in the lives of two young Black men from the South Side.”

    Johnson was convicted of murder for the October 1994 killing of Marcus Boyd, who was shot to death on his front porch by two masked men. Police and prosecutors blamed the killing on a dispute over drug money. Johnson maintained his innocence from the outset, saying he was with his girlfriend miles (kilometers) away when the crime occurred.

    While Johnson was convicted and sentenced to life, a second suspect, Phil Campbell, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in exchange for a seven-year prison term.

    Johnson testified at a December hearing that he was with his girlfriend on the night of the crime, except for a few minutes when he stepped outside of the home of a friend to sell drugs on a corner several blocks from where the victim was killed.

    Johnson’s girlfriend at the time, Erika Barrow, testified that she was with Johnson that entire night, except for about a five-minute span when he left to make the drug sale. She said the distance between the friend’s home and Boyd’s home would have made it impossible for Johnson to get there and back in five minutes.

    The case for Johnson’s release was centered around a key witness who recanted his testimony and a prison inmate who says it was he — not Johnson — who joined Campbell in the killing.

    James Howard, 46, is serving a life sentence for murder and several other crimes that happened three years after Boyd was killed. He testified at the hearing that he and Campbell decided to rob Boyd, who owed one of their friends money from the sale of drugs. He also said Johnson wasn’t there.

    Howard testified that he shot Boyd in the back of the head and neck, and that Campbell shot Boyd in the side.

    Howard and Campbell years ago signed affidavits admitting to the crime and claiming Johnson was not involved. Campbell has since died.

    James Gregory Elking testified in December that he was on the front porch with Boyd, trying to buy crack cocaine, when the two gunmen wearing black ski masks came around the house and began the attack. Elking, who later spent several years in prison for bank robbery, initially told police he couldn’t identify the gunmen.

    He agreed to view a lineup anyway. Elking testified that when he was unable to name anyone from the lineup as a shooter, Detective Joseph Nickerson told him, “I know you know who it is,” and urged him to “help get these guys off the street.”

    Saying he felt “bullied” and “pressured,” Elking named Johnson as one of the shooters. Gardner’s office said Elking was also paid at least $4,000 after agreeing to testify.

    “It’s been haunting me,” he said of his role in sending Johnson to prison.

    Nickerson denied coercing Elking. He testified in December that Elking’s identification of Johnson was based on all that he could see of the shooter’s face — his eyes. Johnson has one eye that looks different than the other, Nickerson said. “You can clearly see it.”

    Dwight Warren, who prosecuted Johnson in 1995, said that beyond Elking’s testimony, the main evidence against Johnson was an overheard jail cell conversation. A jailhouse informant, William Mock, told investigators at the time that he heard Campbell and Johnson talking when one of them said, “We should have shot that white boy,” apparently referring to Elking.

    Warren acknowledged that convicting Johnson would have been “iffy” without Mock’s testimony.

    In March 2021, the Missouri Supreme Court denied Johnson’s request for a new trial after then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office argued successfully that Gardner lacked the authority to seek one so many years after the case was adjudicated.

    The case led to the passage of a state law that makes it easier for prosecutors to get new hearings in cases where there is fresh evidence of a wrongful conviction. That law freed another longtime inmate, Kevin Strickland, last year. He had served more than 40 years for a Kansas City triple killing.

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