California
Lawyer gets prison for laundering millions in drug money
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A lawyer who laundered millions of dollars in drug money for a violent Mexican drug cartel was sentenced Friday to 15 years and eight months in federal prison.
Juan Manuel Álvarez Inzunza, 40, told a federal judge in San Diego, California, that he was “deeply remorseful” and thanked the U.S. government for his capture. The Mexican citizen said his 2016 arrest ended his criminal career and helped make sure “my conduct didn’t get any worse,” the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
Álvarez Inzunza was sentenced on a money-laundering conspiracy charge. In 2016, he was arrested in Mexico, where he was held until his extradition to the U.S. last year.
With credit for time already spent in custody, he was likely to spend nine more years in prison and then will be deported to Mexico, the Union-Tribune said.
In a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Álvarez Inzunza acknowledged that he laundered money for the Sinaloa Cartel from at least December 2013 to August 2015.
Álvarez Inzunza was orphaned and raised by poor relatives in Culiacán, the capital of Mexico’s Sinaloa state. He had a private law firm there when, about a decade ago, “the wrong client came in, and he listened to them” and began his criminal career, defense attorney Frederick Carroll said at Friday’s hearing.
Álvarez Inzunza would relay orders from cartel bosses to an associate in Colombia who would coordinate couriers to pick up cash in the U.S., the prosecution said.
During an investigation, U.S. federal agents found that Álvarez Inzunza had organized the transfer of millions of dollars from the United States to Mexico and other countries and they were able to seize at least $3.5 million in cash, including large amounts of drug money from Boston, Detroit and New York, authorities said.
Álvarez Inzunza was “trying to provide for his family” but ended up “destroying his family,” his attorney said.
At his sentencing. U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw acknowledged that Álvarez Inzunza was remorseful but said his actions helped fund the violent cartel, which doesn’t “exist without money.”
“You’re complicit in all of this activity — it’s not just the money laundering,” Sabraw said.
Washington
Federal judge faults Postmaster General DeJoy in mail delays
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has set limits on one of the U.S. Postal Service’s cost-cutting practices that contributed to a worrisome slowdown of mail deliveries ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan concluded that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s actions delayed mail deliveries and that he acted without obtaining an advisory opinion from the Postal Regulatory Commission.
DeJoy restricted overtime payments for postal workers and stopped the agency’s longtime practice of allowing late and extra truck deliveries in the summer of 2020. The moves reduced costs but meant some mail was left behind to be delivered the following day.
Those delays and the removal of many mail-sorting machines were among actions that led New York and several other states to sue — claiming the actions amounted to voter suppression. DeJoy, a longtime Republican donor and political ally of former President Donald Trump, eventually halted some of his operational changes “to avoid even the appearance of impact on election mail.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who is running for re-election, said Friday that the Postal Service actions “made a mockery of the right to vote.”
The Postal Service disagreed with any assertion that the agency dragged its feet, pointing out that 99.89% of 2020 ballots were delivered to election officials within seven days. Performance further improved in last year’s election, the agency said.
“Any suggestion that the Postal Service or anyone in Postal Service leadership, up to and including the postmaster general, at any point in time was not fully committed to supporting our democratic process is inconsistent with the facts and our performance,” the agency said in a statement.
The judge’s ruling was released Thursday, a day before the Postal Service announced plans to increase prices in 2023. The proposal unveiled Friday would increase the cost of a forever stamp from 60 to 63 cents.
The Postal Service Board of Governors, a majority of whom are now appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, has made no move to replace DeJoy despite calls to do so by Democrats, a postal workers union and other critics.
Sullivan, in his ruling, said that the biggest impact on the delayed mail deliveries was the elimination of those extra delivery trips to homes and businesses.
The judge ruled that the Postal Service cannot prohibit or curtail such trips if service standards dip below a certain level.
Virginia
Court rejects request to rehear gender dysphoria case
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday denied a request to rehear a case that found that gender dysphoria is a condition covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In August, a three-judge panel of the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the first federal appellate court in the country to find that the landmark federal law protects people with gender dysphoria, a condition that causes anguish and other symptoms as a result of a disparity between a person’s gender identity and their assigned sex at birth.
The decision came in the case of Kesha Williams, a transgender woman who sued the Fairfax County sheriff in Virginia for housing her in a jail with men under a policy that inmates must be classified according to their genitals.
In her lawsuit, Williams said that she was harassed and that her prescribed hormone medication was repeatedly delayed or skipped, violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
A federal judge granted a motion by the sheriff’s office to dismiss the lawsuit, but the 4th Circuit panel reversed that ruling, finding there is a distinction between gender identity disorder and gender dysphoria.
The modern diagnosis of gender dysphoria “affirms that a transgender person’s medical needs are just as deserving of treatment and protection as anyone else’s,” Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote in the opinion.
On Friday, the 4th Circuit rejected a request from the sheriff’s office for the full court of 15 judges to rehear the case.
The sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment, and attorneys for the sheriff’s office did not respond to an email.
