EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) — Jim Harbaugh considers one of the marks of a great team to be when the backup players step up when needed the most.
Cam Hart and Tarheeb Still did that for the Los Angeles Chargers last week, and will likely be counted on heavily again going into Monday night's game at Arizona.
The rookie cornerbacks are likely to get starts again due to injuries. Asante Samuel Jr. is on injured reserve due to a shoulder injury and Kristian Fulton strained a hamstring during the third quarter of last Sunday’s 23-16 victory at Denver.
Backup Ja’Sir Taylor has been inactive the past two games due to a leg injury. Deane Leonard is used mostly used on special teams but also suffered a hamstring injury at Denver.
Fulton, Taylor and Leonard did not practice on Wednesday. Eli Apple was signed to the practice squad, but it remains to be seen how quick it will take for him to get up to speed.
“You can see it brewing when that next guy steps up and plays to his best, sometimes it's as good as the starter and when real magic starts happening,” Harbaugh said. “Guys understand that their opportunity is coming and they are preparing for it.”
Hart made his first NFL start at Denver in place of Samuel and played all 55 snaps. With the Chargers starting the game in nickel, Still was at the slot corner spot for the second straight game, but shifted to an outside spot after Fulton's injury.
Hart and Still were both selected in the fifth round. Besides playing the same position, they were also roommates during training camp.
“I guess we just bounce off each other, motivation wise, knowing we have something to prove,” Hart said. “We are good enough no matter where we were picked in the draft and just have to continue to keep showing that the rest of the season.”
Hart wasn't targeted in coverage, but ended up making three tackles against Denver.
“He played really physical and covered well,” Harbaugh said.
Still is averaging 44 snaps in his starts the past two games. He had a nice pass breakup on Bo Nix's deep ball intended for Marvin Mims Jr. during the first quarter.
“I felt more comfortable out there. I'm still adjusting but the coaches have faith and confidence in me,” Still said.
The performances of Hart and Still were two more in what has been a productive draft class in Joe Hortiz’s first year as general manager. Joe Alt, the fifth overall pick, has been a stalwart at right tackle and wide receiver Ladd McConkey, who the Chargers moved up to get in the second round, leads the team in receptions (19) and receiving yards (219).
Linebacker Junior Colson, a third-round pick, is averaging 24 snaps in the three games he has played and running back Kimani Vidal (sixth round) scored a touchdown on a 38-yard catch last week, the first time he touched the ball in the NFL.
“I felt like all the rookies that came in were competitive. You don't want to be too out of control or reckless but you do want to be competitive and show the coaches that you want it,” Still said. “Some people's chances came earlier than others but everyone is going to get their opportunity.”
One of the bigger challenges for the defense, especially the secondary, will be trying to contain Kyler Murray on scrambles. The Chargers allowed six scrambles for 61 yards by Nix last week.
Murray is third among NFL QBs in scramble yards with 150 on 16 runs.
“We know he’s going to be able to extend the play sometimes. So when that does happen, just plaster your guy, stay on him and have good coverage,” Still said.
NOTES: Harbaugh said he received a call from his cardiologist Wednesday morning and that his test results, which included a stress test on Monday, came back positive. “Heart of an athlete was a direct quote from the cardiologist,” Harbaugh said. Harbaugh briefly left Sunday's game due to an irregular heartbeat, which he said had been going on a couple days. Harbaugh is wearing a heart monitor for at least the next weeks, but said that his heart is back in regular rhythm.
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Los Angeles Chargers cornerback Tarheeb Still (29) breaks up a pass intended for Denver Broncos wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr. (19) during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Denver Broncos wide receiver Courtland Sutton (14) catches a 15-yard touchdown pass against Los Angeles Chargers cornerback Tarheeb Still (29) during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
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.
After the sentencing, Calderón said via the social platform X that he respects the court's decision but he never had “verifiable evidence” of García Luna's criminal activities. Calderón said taking on the cartels “was one of the most difficult decisions of my life. But I would do it again, because it is the right thing to do.”
Earlier outside the courthouse, a group of about 15 protesters celebrated the verdict. Some held a banner that said, in Spanish, “Calderon did know,” while others brandished signs denouncing his political party.
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.”
García Luna’s arrest and conviction became a political cudgel that the governing party of Sheinbaum and her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, used in this year’s Mexican presidential election against Calderón’s weakened National Action Party. They sought to paint García Luna as the poster child of corruption and Calderón as the man responsible for soaring violence from the drug war.
López Obrador and now Sheinbaum turned away from direct confrontation with the cartels, instead focusing on what they consider root causes of violence, such as poverty. But the new strategy has failed to significantly lower the level of violence.
López Obrador had a very different reaction in 2020 when U.S. authorities arrested former Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos for allegedly colluding with a drug cartel. In that case, López Obrador accused the Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating evidence against Cienfuegos and protested until the U.S. government dropped the charges. He was returned to Mexico, where he was promptly cleared and released.
Associated Press writers Fabiola Sánchez, María Verza and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed.
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)
