Mexico’s ex-public security chief sentenced to 38-plus years in US for taking cartel bribes

NEW YORK (AP) — The man once heralded as the architect of Mexico’s war on drug cartels was sentenced to more than 38 years in a U.S. prison on Wednesday for taking massive bribes to aid drug traffickers.

Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former secretary of public security, was convicted by a New York jury in 2023 of taking millions of dollars in bribes to protect the violent Sinaloa cartel that he was supposedly combating. He is the highest-level Mexican government official to be convicted in the United States.

At his sentencing hearing before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Wednesday, García Luna continued to maintain his innocence and said the case against him was based on false information from criminals and the Mexican government.

“I have a firm respect for the law,” he said in Spanish. “I have not committed these crimes.”

García Luna, 56, led Mexico’s federal police before he served in a cabinet-level position as the top security official from 2006 to 2012 under then-President Felipe Calderón. At the time, García Luna was hailed as an ally by the U.S. in its fight on drug trafficking.

But U.S. prosecutors said that in return for millions of dollars, he provided intelligence about investigations against the cartel, information about rival gangs and the safe passage of massive quantities of drugs.

Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence. García Luna's lawyers had argued that he should get no more than 20 years.

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan said he wasn't moved by past accolades that García Luna received for his work in the war on drugs.

“That was your cover,” Cogan said before imposing the sentence. “You are guilty of these crimes, sir. You can’t parade these words and say, ‘I’m police officer of the year.’”

Besides the sentence of 38 years and four months, the judge imposed a $2 million fine.

During the trial, photos were shown of García Luna shaking hands with former President Barack Obama and speaking with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John McCain.

But prosecutors said García Luna secretly advanced a drug trafficking conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of thousands of American and Mexican citizens. He ensured that drug traffickers were notified in advance of raids and sabotaged legitimate police operations aimed at apprehending cartel leaders, they said.

Drug traffickers were able to ship over 1 million kilograms of cocaine through Mexico and into the United States using planes, trains, trucks and submarines while García Luna held his posts, prosecutors said.

During former Sinaloa kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán’s trial in the same court in 2018, a former cartel member testified that he personally delivered at least $6 million in payoffs to García Luna and that cartel members agreed to pool up to $50 million to pay for his protection.

“He enabled the cartel. He protected the cartel. He was the cartel,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Saritha Komatireddy told the judge Wednesday.

García Luna enabled a corrupt system that allowed violent cartels to thrive and distribute drugs that killed multitudes of people, she added.

“It may not have been the defendant pulling the trigger, but he has blood on his hands,” Komatireddy said.

Prosecutors also said García Luna plotted to undo last year's verdict by seeking to bribe or corruptly convince multiple inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to support false allegations that two government witnesses communicated via contraband cellular phones in advance of the trial.

García Luna’s lawyer, Cesar de Castro, said the defense intends to appeal the sentence. He said his client is someone who “has served his country” and has now lost his money, his reputation as well as policies he championed in Mexico.

“He has lost close to everything. All that remains is his wonderful family,” de Castro said.

In Mexico, newly inaugurated President Claudia Sheinbaum briefly commented on the case Tuesday, saying: “The big issue here is how someone who was awarded by United States agencies, who ex-President Calderón said wonderful things about his security secretary, today is prisoner in the United States because it’s shown that he was tied to drug trafficking.”

Associated Press writer Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Judge Brian Cogan reads his sentence to Genaro Garcia Luna from the bench in Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

Assistant US Attorney Saritha Komatireddy, right, gives the government sentencing statement while Genaro Garcia Luna, center, looks on in Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

Genaro Garcia Luna stands flanked by U.S. Marshals as he reads his sentencing statement during his sentencing hearing, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, at Brooklyn federal court in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

FILE - Mexico's Genaro Garcia Luna speaks during a ceremony to designate June 2 as Federal Police Day in Mexico City, June 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini, File)

FILE - Mexico's Genaro Garcia Luna speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Mexico City, Sept. 3, 2009. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, File)

PHOENIX (AP) — Phoenix officers repeatedly punched and shocked a deaf Black man with a Taser nearly two months ago when they responded to a call that the man had committed an assault at a convenience store, according to body camera footage.

The man, Tyron Scott McAlpin, 34, has been charged with felony resisting arrest and aggravated assault stemming from the Aug. 19 encounter with the officers. McAlpin’s arrest was first reported late last week by ABC15 Arizona. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Police say Officer Benjamin Harris suffered a hand injury when hitting McAlpin, while McAlpin bit the hand of Officer Kyle Sue during the struggle, which was recorded on the officers' body cameras. Neither officers' race was revealed in police reports.

At a court hearing, Harris testified that everything could have been avoided if McAlpin just indicated he was deaf, ABC15 reported.

Jesse Showalter, an attorney representing McAlpin, said the first officer to make contact with McAlpin wasn’t able to figure out he was deaf because the officer took no steps to deescalate the situation and instead immediately starting using force.

The Phoenix Police Department didn’t immediately respond to a request through the department’s message system seeking comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The man who called the police, who is white, told them that that McAlpin, who was walking nearby, punched him in the face.

An officer caught up with McAlpin in a nearby parking lot and immediately put his hands on him after stepping out of his patrol vehicle, and the struggle began.

McAlpin was arrested on suspicion of assaulting the man who called the police but hasn’t been charged with assaulting him.

Showalter said his client was never involved in a fight with the man.

The agency told ABC15 that the encounter is under investigation and was assigned to its internal affairs unit.

The Phoenix Police Department has been accused by the U.S. Justice Department of discriminating against Black, Hispanic and Native American people, unlawfully detaining homeless people and use excessive force, including unjustified deadly force.

The city has said it is committed to reforms in its police department but has resisted efforts to enter a consent decree with the Justice Department.

This image from Phoenix Police Department body camera footage from Aug. 19, 2024, shows Tyron Scott McAlpin, a Black man who is deaf, being punched and shocked with a Taser by Phoenix police officers when they responded to a call that the man had committed an assault at a convenience store in Phoenix. (Phoenix Police Department via AP)

This image from Phoenix Police Department body camera footage from Aug. 19, 2024, shows Tyron Scott McAlpin, a Black man who is deaf, being punched and shocked with a Taser by Phoenix police officers when they responded to a call that the man had committed an assault at a convenience store in Phoenix. (Phoenix Police Department via AP)

This image from Phoenix Police Department body camera footage from Aug. 19, 2024, shows Tyron Scott McAlpin, a Black man who is deaf, being punched and shocked with a Taser by Phoenix police officers when they responded to a call that the man had committed an assault at a convenience store in Phoenix, according to police. (Phoenix Police Department via AP)