Famous handbag designer sentenced to 18 months in prison for smuggling crocodile handbags

MIAMI (AP) — A top fashion designer whose accessories were used by celebrities from Britney Spears to the cast of the TV series “Sex and the City” was sentenced Monday to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to Miami federal court for smuggling. crocodile handbags from her native Colombia.

Nancy Gonzalez was arrested in 2022 in Cali, Colombia, and later extradited to the United States for leading a massive, multi-year conspiracy involving recruiting couriers to transport her handbags on commercial flights to high-end showrooms and fashion events in New York – all in violation of US laws. wildlife laws.

“It’s all motivated by money,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald, who compared Gonzalez’s behavior to that of drug dealers. “If you want to deter this conduct, you want the cocaine kingpin, not the person on the ground.”

Gonzalez’s lawyers asked for leniency for the famous designer, describing her journey from a divorced single mother of two who designed belts on a home sewing machine in Cali for friends and became a fashion icon who surpassed Dior, Prada and Gucci.

“She was determined to show her children and the world that women, including minority women like herself, can successfully pursue their dreams and become financially independent,” they wrote in a memo before the court hearing. Monday. “Against all odds, this small but mighty woman managed to create the first-ever luxury, high-end fashion company from a third world country. »

Lawyers said the 71-year-old designer had already paid dearly for her crimes. The Colombian company she created, which once employed 300 mostly women workers, declared bankruptcy and ceased operations after her arrest.

They also argued that only 1% of the goods it imported into the United States did not have proper authorization and were samples for New York Fashion Week and other events.

Gonzalez, addressing the court before the sentencing, said she deeply regretted not meticulously following U.S. laws and that her only wish was to hug her 103-year-old mother again.

“From the bottom of my heart, I apologize to the United States of America. I never intended to offend a country to which I owe immense gratitude,” she said, holding back tears. “Under pressure, I made bad decisions.”

Prosecutors countered that Gonzalez acquired great wealth and an opulent lifestyle, which contrasted with the couriers she recruited to smuggle her goods into the United States. Couriers were instructed to declare the items as gifts for loved ones if customs officers asked them questions.

“His mission turned into producing criminals,” Watts-Fitzgerald said. “She tried to rewrite the law for herself, to do things her way.”

According to testimony from her co-defendants and former employees, before major fashion events, Gonzalez, described as a micro-manager, would recruit up to 40 passengers to each carry four designer handbags on commercial flights. In this way, prosecutors estimate, she smuggled goods that earned up to $2 million into the United States. Gonzalez’s lawyers disputed that claim and said each skin only cost about $140.

All skins came from caimans and pythons bred in captivity. Nonetheless, on some occasions it failed to obtain appropriate import permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, required by a widely ratified international treaty governing trade in endangered and threatened wildlife.

In 2016 and 2017, she was warned by U.S. officials against violating those rules, which made her conduct particularly “egregious,” Judge Robert Scola said in handing down her sentence.

Prosecutors asked for a harsher sentence, of 30 to 37 months. But Scola said he was taking into account the nearly 14 months she spent in harsher conditions in a Colombian prison awaiting extradition. Gonzalez, who was out on bail and in custody at his daughter’s Miami home, is due to turn himself in June 6 to begin his sentence.

Although trade in the skins used by Gonzalez was not banned, they came from protected wild animals that require close monitoring under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known by its initials as CITES.

Salma Hayek, Britney Spears and Victoria Beckham are among the celebrities who have purchased Gonzalez’s carefully crafted handbags. His work was also included in a 2008 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Gonzalez’s lawyers showed the court a video, from 2019, of top buyers from Bergdorf Goodman, Saks and others praising the designer’s creativity, productivity and humanity – comments that prosecutor Watts-Fitzgerald said retailers would probably regret it today.

“They must regret being subjected to this and if they found out this was being presented in court they would cringe,” Watts-Fitzgerald said. “They have their own brand to protect.”