Emily Palmer

Within hours of being sentenced to life in prison Wednesday, the notorious Mexican crime lord, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, was whisked away from a federal jail in Manhattan and transferred to an undisclosed location, his lawyers said.

On Thursday, federal prison officials would not say where he had been taken, and even his lawyers had yet to be informed of his whereabouts. They expect he will end up at the nation’s most forbidding federal prison, the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, or ADX, in Florence, Colorado.

The intense secrecy surrounding Guzmán’s transfer to another prison reflected the anxiety over his Houdini-like ability to engineer escapes in the past and the deep financial resources at the disposal of the cartel. (Prosecutors say a “conservative” estimate of Guzmán’s career earnings is about $12.7 billion.)

Guzmán was last seen being escorted from U.S. District Court in Brooklyn by U.S. marshals at about 10:20 a.m. Wednesday, after Judge Brian M. Cogan sentenced him to life in prison plus 30 years on murder, drug and money laundering charges.

Hours later, one of his lawyers, Mariel Colón Miró, attempted to visit Guzmán at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, where he was taken in 2017 after being extradited from Mexico, and was told he was no longer in custody of the jail, she said.

When Colón contacted the jail, she was told that Guzmán had been taken to an airport for transport elsewhere, Colón said.

A spokeswoman at the Metropolitan Correctional Center would not say on Thursday if Guzmán was still in its custody, and said she could not locate records of his whereabouts. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn also declined to say where Guzmán had been taken, stating that the information was classified.

Information about Guzmán’s location was not available on the federal Bureau of Prisons website. In a statement Thursday afternoon, the bureau said it could not reveal Guzmán’s location until he had arrived at a facility, adding it had “no additional information to provide.”

On Wednesday, Cogan did not specify where Guzmán would serve his sentence, but one of his lawyers, Jeffrey Lichtman, said he understood his client would be housed at the ADX in Colorado.

Also known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies, the ADX, where inmates spend 23 hours a day inside their cells, is reputed to be an escape-proof fortress.

Officials at the ADX, located on a barren stretch of desert 40 miles south of Colorado Springs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At his sentencing, Guzmán’s lawyers asked that he be allowed to remain in custody in New York City for 60 days while they prepared an appeal.

During the trial, Guzmán had been housed in the maximum security wing of the federal jail in Lower Manhattan, kept in isolation and denied nearly all visits except those from his lawyers and his young twin daughters. He had complained previously about conditions there, and at his sentencing he called his confinement at the prison “psychological, emotional and mental torture 24 hours a day.”

Federal prosecutors did not object Wednesday to the request to keep Guzmán in Manhattan, but Cogan told both parties that he would leave the decision to the Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Marshals Service.

The Marshals Service confirmed Thursday afternoon that Guzmán is in custody but did not provide further information. The Bureau of Prison’s online inmate locator did not provide any information about Guzmán, and the Marshals Service said it would be updated “upon his arrival at a designated BOP facility.”

If Guzmán were to end up at ADX, he would be one of a number of prominent criminals housed in the facility’s 500 cells, which are made of poured concrete and are intended to be impossible to escape.

Among those housed there are Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is awaiting execution for his role in the Boston Marathon bombings; Terry L. Nichols, an accomplice to the Oklahoma City bombing; Theodore J. Kaczynski, the Unabomber; and Robert P. Hanssen, an FBI agent who spied for Russia.

Guzmán did manage to escape from a concrete cell once before. In his most infamous escape — coordinated by his wife, according to testimony at his trial — Guzmán climbed through a mile-long tunnel his underlings had dug underneath the prison walls into a shower in his cell.

According to testimony, prisoners at the maximum-security prison in Almoloya, Mexico, complained of the noise of crunching concrete, as cartel associates hollowed out the tunnel, which was lighted and ventilated and had a motorcycle awaiting to speed his escape. When Guzmán emerged, his brother-in-law was waiting for him with an all-terrain vehicle, which they rode to an airstrip.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/nyregion/el-chapo-has-disappeared-is-he-at-the-supermax.html" id="dbc02b09-76f0-3897-a531-3775ed924f5c">The New York Times</a>.

NEW YORK — Throughout his long and bloody career, the drug kingpin known as El Chapo has proved to be a master of escape, breaking out of two Mexican prisons to continue his reign leading the Sinaloa cartel.

El Chapo Has Disappeared. (Is He at the Supermax?)

Eleven days later, Cedeno stabbed a fellow student to death at his Bronx high school in what his lawyers have called an act of self-defense against two bullies but prosecutors say was a reckless act of violence.

His trial on manslaughter and assault charges, which began with opening statements Friday, is expected to focus attention on the issue of bullying directed at LGBTQ teenagers.

Cedeno, 19, plans to testify in his own defense. He has waived his right to a jury and put his fate in the hands of Justice Michael Gross in state Supreme Court in the Bronx.

Prosecutors say Cedeno fatally stabbed Matthew McCree, 15, and seriously wounded Ariane Laboy, 16, during a fight on Sept. 27, 2017, in a third-period history class at their high school in the Bronx.

The killing was the first in a New York City classroom in two decades and prompted a public outcry. Parents concerned for student safety pushed for metal detectors to be installed in the school the day after the stabbing.

Gay rights advocates said the school system had failed to address the bullying of LGBTQ youths, and in the wake of McCree’s death, the city created an online portal to report bullying, harassment and discrimination.

During opening statements, Cedeno’s lawyer, Chris Lynn, described the defendant as a gay student who had suffered “a torturous history” of harassment and assault at the school. He had used the knife, Lynn said, only because the other students “decided to attack Abel Cedeno with a force that could not be stopped.”

But prosecutors argued that Cedeno escalated a conflict that otherwise would never have become deadly.

“He brought an illegal knife to school and he was looking for an opportunity to use it,” a prosecutor, Nancy Borko, told the judge, adding that there was “no justification” for the stabbings.

“All the stab wounds were inflicted by one person with a knife: Abel Cedeno,” she said. She added: “Matthew McCree might have got a slap or a punch in. Abel Cedeno gets a stab to the chest in.”

The three boys were students at the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation, a five-story brick building on Mohegan Avenue sometimes referred to as the “Zoo” because of its reputation for gang violence.

The tragic event resonated with many people in the city’s LGBTQ community, for whom bullying in high school was a common experience.

“I actually cried a little bit when I heard about what happened to Abel,” said Daniel Dromm, an openly gay member of the City Council and a former teacher. “There were times I thought when I was younger I’d like to harm the bullies who are doing the harm to me. Luckily I didn’t act, but I understand the mentality.”

Two openly gay lawyers, Lynn and Robert Feldman, volunteered to take over the case from the Legal Aid Society, serving pro bono. In interviews, Feldman has tried to cast the proceedings, which come at the end of the World Pride Month celebration in Manhattan, as “a gay pride trial.”

Cedeno, who came out as a gay man after his arrest, took the stand to testify before a grand jury for three hours. In the end the grand jury indicted him on a manslaughter charge rather than a murder charge.

In his opening statement, Lynn said Cedeno, who had spent years putting up with bullying, feared for his life on the day of the stabbing.

That day, Lynn said, several students started throwing debris at Cedeno in class. He took a trip to the bathroom, but the harassment continued when he returned. Cedeno then grabbed his backpack and moved toward the door, Lynn said, but stopped and yelled, “Who is throwing these things at me and why?”

McCree and Laboy moved from the back of the class toward Cedeno, Lynn said. Cedeno, who is left-handed, drew a black-handled knife from his pocket, holding it in his right hand as a warning. Advancing toward him, McCree pushed a teacher out of the way and attacked Cedeno, Lynn said.

Shavon Evelyn, a guidance counselor at the school, testified Friday that moments after the attack she saw Cedeno leaving the classroom. She took him to the assistant principal’s office and noticed a closed knife in his hand.

She said she asked him why he had brought the knife to school, and he replied, “‘I don’t know, I guess I thought I was a badass.’” He went on to admit to her that he had stabbed two people, Evelyn said.

Later, she said, she overheard him talking on a cellphone. “‘Either I’m going to jail or I’m going to get jumped,’” he told the person on the other end. After he hung up, Evelyn said, she heard him say: “‘I shouldn’t have done it, I went too far. I shouldn’t have done it, I went too far.’”

Cedeno filed a federal lawsuit this month against the city education department, claiming that the school enabled the bullying and that he was physically assaulted regularly and endured “discriminatory anti-gay epithets.”

McCree’s and Laboy’s families have also sued the city, claiming that the school should have had metal detectors and that teachers did too little to prevent the attack.

“You’re supposed to be safe inside a school,” McCree’s mother, Louna Dennis, said Thursday outside the courthouse. “It’s not a war zone. It’s not a battleground. It’s a school. It’s a place of learning. It’s supposed to be a safe environment.”

Bullied for Being Gay: Teen's Defense in High School Killing

NEW YORK — Abel Cedeno says he was bullied for years in school by other students because of his perceived sexual orientation. Then, in September 2017, he sent a message to a friend suggesting he was willing to defend himself: a video of himself, flicking open a switchblade. A caption asked why people thought he was soft.

Bullied for being gay: teen's defense in high school killing

For years, Sorokin pretended to be Anna Delvey, a German heiress with a trust fund that paid for a life of glamorous ease. She lived in boutique hotels, wore designer clothes and hung out in New York City’s moneyed party circles.

In reality, Sorokin, 28, was a Russian immigrant who walked out on bills, connived her way into luxury, and persuaded a bank employee to give her $100,000 she never intended to pay back, the jury decided in convicting her last month.

But in two interviews with The New York Times at the Rikers Island jail complex, where she has been held since October 2017, Sorokin was eager to explain her actions as the naive missteps of a young woman worried that she would not otherwise be taken seriously.

“The thing is, I’m not sorry,” she said Friday, a day after she was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison. “I’d be lying to you and to everyone else and to myself if I said I was sorry for anything. I regret the way I went about certain things.”

She said she always intended to pay back her creditors, which included two downtown hotels, a private jet company and banks. In all, the jury found, Sorokin bilked these places out of more than $200,000 and tried to dupe a hedge fund into giving her a $25 million loan.

In an interview about a week before her sentencing, Sorokin acknowledged that friends knew her as Anna Delvey. But that was just her mother’s maiden name, she said. (Her lawyer, Todd Spodek, later told The Times that he did not believe that was the case, and her parents had told New York magazine they did not recognize the name.)

It was true, she said, that she had falsified some bank records, but only because she had a big dream. She had wanted to start a $40 million private club, and potential investors pushed her to open it before they would put up their own money.

Sorokin insisted she was worried that as a young woman, she was vulnerable to men who would “cheer me on” and then seize control of her vision for the club, which she called the Anna Delvey Foundation. The attention of influential men in finance and real estate validated her, she said.

“My motive was never money,” she said, dressed in a khaki jail jumpsuit and Céline glasses. “I was power-hungry.”

Friends may have thought she had millions of dollars at her disposal, she said, but that was a misunderstanding. She said she never told anyone she had that kind of money — they just assumed it.

Still, while Sorokin made excuses for her actions, she did not apologize for her character: “I’m not a good person.”

From striver to grifter

Sorokin said she was born in Russia and grew up in Eschweiler, Germany, where her father worked as an executive at a transport company, which eventually became insolvent. At 19, she left her parents and brother for Paris in pursuit of a fashion degree.

Sorokin, who spoke only vaguely of her childhood, said she was not close to her “conservative” parents; she noted that they did not attend her trial.

In Paris, she said she took on the name Anna Delvey when shooting photographs for Purple, a fashion, art and culture magazine. There, her attention turned to art.

Earning just 400 euros a month, she remained financially dependent on her parents, who paid for her apartment, she said.

But after experiencing a breakup, she headed to New York in the late summer of 2013 for a trip to Montauk and then Fashion Week.

New York was not supposed to be a permanent move, but she found more friends than in Paris and decided to stay. For a while, she worked at Purple’s New York office, she said. But eventually, she quit that, too.

This, prosecutors said, is when the striver Anna Delvey became the grifter Anna Delvey.

She moved from boutique hotel to boutique hotel, handing out $100 tips and putting off bills with promises of wire transfers that never materialized. She organized dinners at expensive restaurants, hired a private personal trainer and wore Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent.

She also began pitching her idea for her private club, which she called ADF, with exclusive memberships and rotating arts exhibits. She gained access to André Balazs, the hotelier; Roo Rogers, the British-American entrepreneur; and Aby Rosen, the real estate developer. In 2015, she befriended Gabriel Andres Calatrava, an architect and the son of Santiago Calatrava, the architect who designed the Oculus, the birdlike centerpiece of the World Trade Center transit hub.

But time was running out. She said she felt pressured to open the club in order to attract more investors. Prosecutors said her ruse was collapsing.

In late 2016, she said, she returned to Germany for a few months where she worked out the details of ADF and created four fake banks statements in Photoshop, which she said took surprisingly little time. She returned to New York in early 2017. She would use those same documents again and again in pursuit of different loans, she said.

Life behind bars

Sorokin was first arrested in July 2017 for skipping out on thousands of dollars of bills at the Beekman and W New York hotels and a lunch bill of less than $200 at a restaurant at the Le Parker Meridien hotel.

After being released, Sorokin was again arrested in October 2017 and held at Rikers.

Ahead of trial, she said, she was offered a plea deal with a sentence of three to nine years in prison, but she considered that too long and took her chances on a trial. Although she was sentenced to a longer term than she had been offered in a plea deal, she said she did not regret going to trial.

She said she has balked against authority in Rikers and has been disciplined 30 times, including a few weeks in solitary over Christmas. Because of her behavior, Sorokin said, she has been held in a maximum security section. A city corrections official confirmed the stint in solitary and said Sorokin had 13 infractions for things like fighting and disobeying orders.

She said she had achieved a measure of fame among other inmates for cheating the rich but said she did not support that characterization of herself.

Sorokin said she still has some infrequent visits from friends. But she has not seen Rachel Williams, a former Vanity Fair photo editor who testified against Sorokin at the trial. Williams accused her of stealing more than $60,000 for an opulent trip they took together to Morocco in 2017. A jury found Sorokin not guilty of the charge.

On the stand, Williams had burst into tears, calling the theft the worst experience of her life. “She should try a week here,” Sorokin said dryly, of Rikers.

Sorokin has started writing a memoir about her exploits in New York. She plans to write a second book about her experience at Rikers.

In a subsequent interview, Sorokin said she was looking forward to finishing both books while in prison.

“I guess I’m fortunate enough to go to real prison, so I’ll have more material,” she said.

After her release, she is likely to be deported to Germany, but she said she then hoped to move to London.

She said she had already made some “smaller investments” in technology and cryptocurrency with personal money routed through an LLC.

Sorokin said she was also interested in criminal justice reform, artificial intelligence and the banking industry, adding: “Ideally, if all goes well, I’ll have my own investment fund.”

Spodek, her lawyer, said: “I don’t know how realistic some of these business endeavors are. But I’m confident that this won’t be the last time we hear from Anna, and I know that she will go on to great things.”

Others are also writing Sorokin’s story: Williams has deals with HBO and Simon &amp; Schuster. And Netflix purchased the rights to the New York magazine story for an undisclosed amount. Shonda Rhimes, the creator of “Gray’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” has been tapped to dramatize it.

As guards signaled the end of the visit before her sentencing, Sorokin was asked if given the chance, she would do the same things again.

Sorokin shrugged. “Yes, probably so,” she said, laughing.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/nyregion/anna-sorokin-delvey-story.html" id="6e669d7a-ed60-38a9-accf-e6eb8f653cd5">The New York Times</a>.

'Anna Delvey' Conned the City's Wealthy. She Says, 'I'm Not Sorry.'

Even on her way to prison, even after a jury convicted her of swindling almost everyone she knew and a judge accused her of running “a big scam,” Anna Sorokin was sticking by her story.

Others are also writing the story: Williams has deals with HBO and Simon &amp; Schuster. And Netflix purchased the rights to the New York magazine story for an undisclosed amount. Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Gray’s Anatomy and Scandal, has been tapped to dramatize it.

Sorokin shrugged. “Yes, probably so,” she laughed.

But she arrived with a new identity: that of a wealthy German heiress with a trust fund worth 60 million euros (about $67 million). She came up with a new name, Anna Delvey, and lived under that identity as she bilked banks, hotels, restaurants and a private jet operator out of more than $200,000 — and aimed to get millions more, according to prosecutors.

Following a monthlong trial, a jury in Manhattan on Thursday found Sorokin guilty of second-degree grand larceny, theft of services and one count of first-degree attempted grand larceny. She was found not guilty on other charges after being accused of providing falsified documents in an attempt to secure a $22 million bank loan, and of stealing some $60,000 for a lavish trip to Marrakesh, Morocco.

Sorokin faces up to 15 years in prison on the second-degree grand larceny charge, and her sentencing is scheduled for May 9.

Here are seven highlights from her trial:

— ‘There’s a little bit of Anna in all of us’

Todd Spodek, Sorokin’s attorney, started his opening statement by talking about Frank Sinatra’s recording of “New York, New York,” which includes the famous refrain “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” Then, about a minute into his speech, Spodek introduced his client. He mentioned her “moxie” and commended her hustle.

“Through her sheer ingenuity, she created the life that she wanted for herself,” he said. “Anna was not content with being a spectator, but wanted to be a participant. Anna didn’t wait for opportunities, Anna created opportunities. Now we can all relate to that. There’s a little bit of Anna in all of us.”

Sorokin had a modest upbringing. Her father ran a heating and cooling business, and she did not attend fancy schools or have connections with Manhattan’s elite. But her doppelgänger, Anna Delvey, did. “They wanted to believe that she was a German heiress,” Spodek said of people his client duped. “And that’s what they got.”

In a way, Spodek said, Sorokin and Sinatra had a lot in common. “Sinatra made a great new start here in New York, as did Ms. Sorokin,” he said. “They both created a golden opportunity.”

— The challenges of styling the incarcerated

In court, Sorokin at times appeared to still be playing the character of Anna Delvey. She often attended the trial decked in designer clothes picked out by stylist Anastasia Walker. After wearing revealing outfits at the start of the trial, Sorokin dressed more modestly by the second week.

“I will say obviously there are challenges to styling someone who’s currently incarcerated,” Walker told BuzzFeed News.

Eventually, Spodek also tried to help select the outfits. Among options he brought her were a light-blue sleeveless dress from Ann Taylor and an indigo cashmere-blend sweater from Uniqlo. Such choices did not appease the fashion sensibilities of Sorokin, who broke into tears and refused to start proceedings.

After several such meltdowns, the judge informed Sorokin that if she could not make do, she could wear the clothing provided by the Department of Correction. Eventually, Sorokin paired black slacks with a state-issued white turtleneck, sleeves cinched.

— The traumatic experience of meeting Anna

Toward the end of the trial, Rachel Williams, a former close friend of Sorokin and a former photo editor at Vanity Fair, testified at length about the posh lifestyle they lived: lavish dinners, sauna treatments and personal trainers, all supposedly paid for by Sorokin.

The two then decided to travel to Marrakech. Sorokin had promised to pay for everything but always conveniently found an excuse to not pay for anything. In the end, Williams got stuck with a bill totaling more than $60,000 for dinners, shopping trips and an extravagant stay at a private villa. Sorokin paid her back only $5,000.

“This is the most traumatic experience I’ve ever been through,” Williams told the jury through tears. “I wish I had never met Anna. If I could go back in time, I would. I wouldn’t wish this on anybody.”

One juror, who gave her name only as Debby, explained in an interview why the jury had found Sorokin not guilty of fleecing Williams of some $60,000: “Anna did a lot of nice things for her and she accepted it, right down to the spa.”

— The $60,000 trip to Morocco

During that trip to Marrakech, Williams testified, she and Sorokin ventured out to explore the city after spending time in their private villa — where they enjoyed a steam room and private pool. Sorokin went shopping on Williams’ dime, spending $1,314 on Moroccan-style dresses “because Anna just had her New York black clothing.”

She added, “We tried to find spices that would look good in an Instagram photo, which we did, in the Jewish quarter.”

A freelance videographer tagged along on the trip to shoot footage of the women. Sorokin explained that she wanted to make a documentary about the creation of her foundation and wanted to get accustomed to being on camera.

— The no-shows

Some of the most influential people conned by Sorokin were never asked to take the stand. Among those on the prosecution’s witness list who did not attend the trial:

André Balazs, hotelier of the Chiltern Firehouse in London, Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles and the Mercer in New York, met with Sorokin between 2015 and 2016 to discuss the supposed Anna Delvey Foundation.

Roo Rogers, a businessman with a slew of startups and son of the famed architect Richard Rogers, worked for Balazs’ food and beverage company and met with Sorokin to discuss the sale of drinks at the foundation, according to her attorney.

Aby Rosen, a real estate developer tycoon and a co-founder of RFR Holding who is married to New York socialite Samantha Boardman, met with Sorokin and approved the foundation’s lease at its desired 281 Park Ave. South location, according to Sorokin’s attorney.

Kacy Duke, a celebrity fitness trainer, whom Sorokin hired for personal workout sessions for herself and Williams at a cost of $300 per session, also traveled with the women to Marrakech. A few months after the trip, Duke staged an intervention to get to the bottom of Sorokin’s ruse.

— $6 Diet Cokes

Considering Sorokin was trying to swindle banks out of tens of millions of dollars, the charges for theft of services appeared minor by comparison. Three of the 10 charges she faced included avoiding payment at a slew of Manhattan hotels.

The prosecutor, Catherine McCaw, said that at the Beekman Hotel in lower Manhattan, Sorokin “had no money, she had no intention to pay, she had no ability to pay.” She added, “She continued to feast out of the minibar: Diet Cokes for $6.”

At the W Hotel near the World Trade Center, she racked up a $679 bill for incidental expenses. “That’s an awful lot of M&amp;M;’s,” McCaw said, adding, “She emptied out the minibar and then asked the W Hotel to refill it.”

The final charge for theft of services, at Knave, a restaurant inside of the Parker New York hotel south of Central Park in New York, was for an unpaid bill of about $200 for a meal that included four glasses of wine, a fruit salad and two smoked-salmon sandwiches.

— A Hollywood story

Already, Netflix has bought the rights to one version of Sorokin’s story, which will be produced by Shonda Rhimes, creator of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal.”

Williams has also turned the experience into a book and a possible HBO show. She has made close to $100,000 on the deals so far, with the expectation of much more, according to her testimony. She notes that she has used the money to pay people back for loans incurred after the trip to Marrakech.

“There are real people with feelings involved,” Williams said of monetizing the experience. “I just wanted to write something that people could really relate to.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/28/nyregion/anna-sorokin-delvey-trial.html" id="caeecdbd-4827-38b5-a42a-0dc7daca183a">The New York Times</a>.

NEW YORK — For years, Anna Sorokin dreamed of being someone else. A Russian immigrant with aspirations of becoming a member of Manhattan’s upper society, Sorokin hopped around Germany and Paris before finally coming to New York in 2014.

'Anna Delvey,' Fake Heiress: 7 Bizarre Highlights From Her Trial

By the end of the trial in March, nearly everyone in Covlin’s life viewed him as a calculated sociopath, willing not only to kill his wife, Shele Danishefsky Covlin, for her fortune, but to manipulate the couple’s two children to gain access to their inheritance.

Still, when Covlin was sentenced in state Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday, there was a final twist to the sad saga: The couple’s children pleaded with the judge for leniency for their father.

Myles Covlin, who is 12, approached Justice Ruth Pickholz to speak, standing a short distance from his father at the defense table.

“I lost one parent and do not want to lose a second,” Myles said as his father turned toward him and wiped tears from his eyes.

Dressed in khakis and a blue and white patterned shirt, Myles added, “I’m afraid if he is given the maximum sentence, I won’t have the opportunity to do things with my dad.”

His sister, Anna Covlin, now 18, did not attend the sentencing. But in a letter read by her paternal grandmother, she also urged the judge to give her father a lighter sentence than prosecutors had recommended.

Anna Covlin was only 9 in December 2009 when she woke and discovered her mother facedown in bloody water in the tub of their Upper West Side apartment. Her father lived across the hall and had a spare key to the apartment. Danishefsky Covlin had filed for divorce, and the day she died, she was planning to cut Covlin out of her will.

Pickholz was unmoved by the children’s statements. She called the evidence presented at trial overwhelming and sentenced Covlin to the maximum allowed for second-degree murder — 25 years to life.

Other relatives of Danishefsky Covlin, who was a successful finance executive when she died at 47, called the sentence “totally justified.”

“The defendant is a heartless monster,” said Peggy Danishefsky, the victim’s sister-in-law. “He has torn our family apart and tried to destroy our family in so many ways.”

Prosecutors worked more than five years to build a case against Covlin. The initial investigation had been lacking because investigators assumed her death was an accident. (For instance, officers allowed the family to bury Danishefsky Covlin before an autopsy was done and to let a rabbi clean the blood-soaked bathroom with peroxide.)

In the end, the lead prosecutor, Matthew Bogdanos, mounted a case built largely on circumstantial evidence. He persuaded a jury that only Covlin could have committed the murder and that he had held his wife in a chokehold, squeezing her neck so tightly that he had snapped the hyoid bone and caused blood vessels to burst in her eye.

Covlin, 45, said before he was sentenced that he was innocent. “Luckily my daughter who was there that night knows the truth,” he said. “She’s the only one who could.”

Bogdanos said Covlin’s criminal behavior continued long after his wife’s death. He urged his daughter, for instance, to accuse her grandfather of rape as part of a scheme to regain custody of the children from his parents.

At another point he had planned to take Anna to Mexico, where she would be married, so that she could be emancipated from his parents. There was also evidence presented at trial that Covlin tried to forge a letter from his daughter, in which she took responsibility for the killing.

Covlin even made plans to kill his own parents, Bogdanos said.

“It is reasonable to ask: How long had he planned it?” Bogdanos told the court. “How many iterations had he gone through to come up with this particular plan?”

Speaking in the hallway after the sentencing, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said the family’s story contained lessons for all New Yorkers.

“This tragedy was compounded by the fact that it occurred in a family that is educated, wealthy and happy in so many ways,” he said. “Domestic violence occurs everywhere.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="ea3b0fc5-583a-3394-afc1-8c827da6cbb0" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/nyregion/rod-covlin-sentencing.html">The New York Times</a>.

He killed his wife for her fortune, but their children still pleaded for leniency

NEW YORK — More than nine years separated the strangulation of a woman in her Upper West Side apartment and the conviction of her estranged husband, Roderick Covlin, for her murder.

<h1>NEW YORK — Just a day after Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the drug kingpin known as El Chapo, was convicted of all 10 counts in a drug conspiracy case in Brooklyn, the Justice Department unsealed another indictment — against two of his younger sons.</h1>

That brief four-page indictment, announced by the department Thursday more than a week after it was unsealed Feb. 13, charges Joaquín Guzmán López and Ovidio Guzmán López with one count of conspiracy to “knowingly, intentionally, and willfully” distribute cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana for importation into the United States. The indictment entails a period from April 2008 — when their father was running the Sinaloa cartel with his partner, Ismael Zambada — to April 2018.

The two brothers have yet to be arrested and authorities believe they are in Mexico. If they are arrested there, the United States would have to extradite them to bring them to trial, which would be held under Judge Rudolph Contreras of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

A. Eduardo Balarezo, one of El Chapo’s lawyers, questioned the timing of the indictment. “The recent indictment against Joaquín’s two sons smacks of a concerted attempt by the government to paint the entire family as being involved in criminal activity when the only evidence they have of it is based on cooperator testimony,” he said.

One of the prosecutors Mr. Guzmán’s case, Anthony Nardozzi, of the criminal division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, has been named a lead prosecutor in the case involving El Chapo’s sons.

Nardozzi played a small role in El Chapo’s conviction, examining a handful of the 56 witnesses presented by prosecutors. Among those he questioned included Guzmán’s mistress, with whom he eluded authorities by sneaking down a tunnel under his bathtub, as well as Isaias Valdez Rios,his former bodyguard and pilot, who recounted to jurors bloody killings and tortures.

Nardozzi also interviewed several government agents, among them a supervisory special agent for Homeland Security Investigations. That agency also led the investigation against El Chapo’s two sons as part of a coordinated effort between federal, state and local enforcement agencies.

“HSI special agents from HSI Nogales investigated El Chapo,” said Scott Brown, a special agent in charge of Phoenix. “And it was special agents from the same office whose investigative efforts led to the indictment of two of his sons.”

The drug kingpin’s older sons, who helped take over the reins after his arrest in 2016, have been previously charged. Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar was charged in 2014 in a case in San Diego that involved, among others, his father. Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar was charged in 2015 in Chicago. Both remain at large. The latter has been added to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s most wanted fugitives list.

Guzman’s sons were brought up frequently over the course of his 11-week trial, usually just by name and picture. But a few anecdotes stood out, among them that they helped to orchestrate El Chapo’s famous tunnel escape from a maximum-security prison in Almoloya, Mexico, in 2015.

It remains to be seen if and when the two younger sons will stand trial. At one time, their father had seven cases pending against him in the United States. The case against him in the Eastern District of New York, where he was tried, was filed in July 2009. It would be almost a decade before he was convicted.

This article originally appeared in <a id="95dda456-27e2-467b-98f7-e140e5abd739" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/nyregion/el-chapo-sons-indictment.html">The New York Times</a>.

El Chapo's sons are indicted on drug conspiracy charge

That brief four-page indictment charges Joaquín Guzmán López and Ovidio Guzmán López with one count of conspiracy to “knowingly, intentionally, and willfully” distribute cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana for importation into the United States.

<h1>NEW YORK — Fourteen years ago, the police in Colombia stormed a makeshift veterinary clinic at a farm in Medellín, seizing 17 bags of liquid heroin and rescuing a pack of purebred puppies who were in the process of being stuffed with the drug.</h1>

On Thursday, in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, Andres Lopez Elorez, a Colombian national with veterinary training, was sentenced to six years in prison for conspiracy to import the heroin, stitched into the puppies’ stomachs.

The case was another reminder of the lengths drug traffickers will go to in order to transport the illicit product across borders.

Although this is not the first case of a trafficker using puppies as drug mules, it seemed fitting that two floors above the courtroom where Elorez was sentenced, jurors were deliberating the fate of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug kingpin known as El Chapo, who has gained notoriety for his novel smuggling techniques. Testimony from Guzman’s trial has detailed his systems of transporting drugs on sea vessels, in the bedding of trucks and even hidden in cans of chili peppers.

In fact, one of the prosecutors in Guzmán’s case, Andrea Goldbarg, headed downstairs Thursday to listen in on the puppy sentencing.

A prosecutor in the Colombian case, Alicia Washington, told the court Thursday that when law enforcement officials found the puppies — some already filled with heroin and others being prepared for surgery — they tried to remove the balloons from “the dogs that were still alive.”

Three puppies later died, however, after contracting viruses from the emergency operations. (Several of the dogs have since found new homes, including one Rottweiler who is now a drug detection dog for the Colombian national police, and a beagle who was adopted by a Colombian police officer, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.)

Urging the judge to hold Elorez responsible for “betraying his responsibility as a veterinarian,” Washington suggested as many as nine years in prison, adding, “Without his skill set these Colombian traffickers couldn’t have done what they did.”

Elorez, now 39, who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in September, approached the judge with his hands crossed behind his back. Speaking through an interpreter, he called the five-month span 2005 when he rented the farm, raised the puppies and conducted the surgeries a “very difficult time for me.” He added, “They were formative years for me personally and professionally.”

Court proceedings and filings show that Elorez did not work alone. Mitchell Dinnerstein, his court-appointed attorney, mentioned an unnamed veterinarian “of some influence” in Colombia, who has never been arrested in connection with the conspiracy. That veterinarian, who had ties to drug traffickers, had mentored Elorez, securing him an internship and stipend and eventually orchestrating the puppy project, Dinnerstein said.

Elorez said the mentor did “everything he could professionally to help me out, and also taught me that there was a door I should never open, but unfortunately I did open it.”

Then, on Jan. 1, 2005, the Colombian police stormed the farm in Medellín, seizing the 17 bags of liquid heroin — 10 of which were already implanted in the puppies — totaling almost 3 kilograms.

Elorez fled to Spain, using Venezuelan documents and settling in Galicia, where he eventually married and raised two children. He eluded authorities until 2015, assisting veterinarians and undergoing a “total transformation,” according to his attorney.

“I know I cannot justify my actions,” Elorez told the judge. “Because I have made mistakes.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="f7e5002f-00f2-40e1-8535-8cadf746a039" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/nyregion/puppies-drugs-heroin-smuggling.html">The New York Times</a>.

Veterinarian Who Used Puppies As Mules for Heroin Is Sentenced

The case was another reminder of the lengths drug traffickers will go to in order to transport the illicit product across borders.

Veterinarian who used puppies as mules for heroin is sentenced

morning, Elorez, now 39, who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in September, approached the judge with his hands crossed behind his back. Speaking through an interpreter, he called the five-month span 2005 when he rented the farm, raised the puppies and conducted the surgeries a “very difficult time for me.” He added, “They were formative years for me personally and professionally.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/nyregion/puppies-drugs-heroin-smuggling.html" id="0402215a-8be8-327e-a159-8ed602aed489">The New York Times</a>.

NEW YORK — Fourteen years ago, the police in Colombia stormed a makeshift veterinary clinic at a farm in Medellín, seizing 17 bags of liquid heroin and rescuing a pack of purebred puppies who were in the process of being stuffed with the drug.

<h1>NEW YORK — Usually, following the end of a long day in the drug trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican kingpin known as El Chapo, the courtroom empties slowly.</h1>

But last Tuesday, most reporters rushed out at the end of proceedings to file the stunning news in testimony from Alex Cifuentes Villa, a former lieutenant in the Sinaloa cartel, who said that former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto had accepted a $100 million bribe from Guzmán in 2012.

So it was in a mostly empty courtroom that prosecutors asked Jeffrey Lichtman, one of Guzmán’s defense attorneys, to turn in his official witness list.

The defense responded that they were unprepared to turn in a finalized list, but they did have two names they wanted to be sure the prosecution knew about. The first was a witness (not identified by name) who was in the government’s custody. Then, Lichtman walked toward the judge, bent forward and in a low voice mentioned one more name — the defendant’s.

The addition signaled what had been rumored for weeks: The drug kingpin might want a shot at telling his own story in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. It would be yet another startling development in a trial that has already delivered many sensational moments.

Lichtman has told reporters it is only a “possibility” that Guzmán might testify.

“It’s his absolute right to testify or not to testify,” said another of his attorneys, A. Eduardo Balarezo.

So it was in a mostly empty courtroom that prosecutors asked Jeffrey Lichtman, one of Guzmán’s defense attorneys, to turn in his official witness list.

Emily Palmer

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