NEW YORK (AP) — Two men have pleaded guilty to providing the fentanyl-laced heroin that killed prominent New York City transgender activist Cecilia Gentili earlier this year, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Michael Kuilan, 44, pleaded guilty to a charge that he distributed and possessed with intent to distribute heroin and fentanyl in Brooklyn federal court on Monday, according to U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace's office. Antonio Venti, 52, entered a guilty plea to the same charge in July.
As part of their plea deals, prosecutors said the men admitted they caused Gentili's death. They said text messages, cell site data, and other evidence showed that Kuilan, a Brooklyn resident, had supplied Venti, a Long Island resident, with drugs that he then sold to Gentili.
Law enforcement officials searching Kuilan’s home also found hundreds of small bags of fentanyl, a handgun and ammunition.
“While these guilty pleas can’t undo the tragic loss of transgender rights activist Cecelia Gentili, it sends a message that we will do everything we can to make sure those responsible for drug related deaths face the consequences for their actions, and the families of those who lost their lives receive justice,” Frank Tarentino, special agent in charge of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's New York office.
Gentili was a former sex worker who became a leading advocate for other transgender people, as well as sex workers and people with HIV. She also acted in the FX television series “Pose,” about the underground ballroom dance scene in the 1980s and 1990s.
Her well-attended funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan drew outrage from some in the Catholic community, including from the venerable church’s own pastor.
Gentili was found dead in her bedroom on Feb. 6, the day after purchasing drugs from Venti. Prosecutors say the 52-year-old Brooklyn resident’s death was due to the combined effect of fentanyl, heroin, xylazine and cocaine.
Kuilan is expected to be sentenced in January, and Venti will be sentenced next month. Lawyers for the two men didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment Monday.
This story has been corrected to show Kuilan will be sentenced in January, not next month.
FILE - Transgender activist Cecilia Gentili poses for a photo at the offices of the Oxford University Press in New York on April 24, 2014.(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The man accused in the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump at a golf course in Florida left behind a note detailing his plans to kill the former president and kept in his car a handwritten list of dates and venues where Trump was to appear, the Justice Department said Monday.
The new allegations were included in a detention memo filed ahead of a hearing Monday at which the Justice Department argued that 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh should remain locked up as the case moves forward. U.S. Magistrate Ryon McCabe agreed, saying the “weight of the evidence against the defendant is strong” and that he should stay behind bars.
The details were meant to buttress prosecutors' assertions that Routh is a threat to public safety with a premeditated plan to kill Trump — a plot officials say was thwarted by a Secret Service agent who spotted a rifle poking out of shrubbery on the West Palm Beach golf course where Trump was playing.
The note was placed in a box dropped off months earlier at the home of an unidentified person who did not open it until after last Sunday's arrest. The box also contained ammunition, a metal pipe, building materials, tools, phones and various letters. The person who received the box and contacted law enforcement was not identified in the Justice Department's detention memo.
One note, addressed “Dear World,” appears to have been premised on the idea that the assassination attempt would be unsuccessful.
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job,” the note said, according to prosecutors.
An attorney for Routh didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Monday morning.
Cellphone records cited by the Justice Department indicate Routh traveled to West Palm Beach from Greensboro in mid-August, and that he was near Trump’s golf club and the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence “on multiple days and times” between August 18 and the day of the apparent attempted assassination.
He was arrested on Sunday afternoon after a Secret Service agent who was scoping the Trump International Golf Club for potential security threats saw a partially obscured man's face, and the barrel of a semiautomatic rifle, aimed directly at him. The agent fired at Routh, who sped away before being stopped by officials in a neighboring county.
The Secret Service has said Routh did not fire any shots and never had Trump in his line of sight.
The Justice Department also said Monday that authorities who searched his car found six cellphones, including one that showed a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.
They also found a list with dates in August, September and October and venues where Trump had appeared or was scheduled to, according to prosecutors. A notebook found in his car was filled with criticism of the Russian and Chinese governments and notes about how to join the war on behalf of Ukraine.
The detention memo also cites a book authored by Routh last year in which he lambasted Trump's approach to foreign policy, including in Ukraine. In the book, he wrote that Iran was “free to assassinate Trump” for having left the nuclear deal.
Routh is charged with illegally possessing his gun in spite of multiple felony convictions, including two charges of possessing stolen goods in 2002 in North Carolina, and with possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. More serious charges are possible in the weeks ahead.
Feds: Man accused in apparent assassination attempt wrote note indicating he intended to kill Trump
Feds: Man accused in apparent assassination attempt wrote note indicating he intended to kill Trump
This photo provided by Hédi Aouidj shows Ryan Routh, a suspect in the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump, in Maidan, Ukraine on April 10, 2024. (Hédi Aouidj via AP)
