Famous handbag designer sentenced to 18 months for smuggling

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

Nancy Gonzalez was arrested in Cali, Colombia, in 2022 and later extradited to the US for running an elaborate multi-year conspiracy that recruited couriers to transport her handbags on commercial flights to luxury showrooms and fashion events in New York – all in contrary to US law. laws of nature.

“It’s all driven by the money,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald, who compared Gonzalez’s behavior to that of drug traffickers. “If you want to discourage the behavior, you want the cocaine kingpin, not the person in the field.”

Lawyers for Gonzalez sought leniency for the famed designer, describing her journey from a divorced single mother of two who designed belts for friends on a home sewing machine in Cali to a fashion icon surpassing the likes of 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 ahead of Monday’s hearing. “Against all odds, this small but mighty woman managed to create the very first luxury, high-end fashion company from a third world country.”

The lawyers said the 71-year-old designer has already paid a heavy price for her crimes. The Colombian company she built, which once employed 300 mostly female workers, went bankrupt and ceased operations after her arrest.

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

Speaking to the court before the sentencing, Gonzalez said she deeply regretted her failure to scrupulously comply with U.S. laws and that her only wish was to hug her 103-year-old mother one more time.

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

Prosecutors countered that Gonzalez had acquired great wealth and a lavish lifestyle, which contrasted with the couriers she recruited to smuggle her merchandise into the United States. The couriers were instructed to say the items were gifts for their relatives when the customs agents asked them questions.

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

According to testimony from her co-defendants and former employees, Gonzalez, described as a micromanager, would recruit as many as 40 passengers each to carry four designer handbags on commercial flights before major fashion events. In this way, prosecutors estimate she smuggled goods that fetched as much as $2 million in the US. Gonzalez’s attorneys disputed the claim, saying each skin only cost about $140.

All the skins came from caimans and pythons bred in captivity. Nevertheless, on some occasions she failed to obtain proper import permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which was required under a widely ratified international treaty governing trade in endangered species.

In 2016 and 2017, she was warned by U.S. officials not to circumvent such rules, making her behavior particularly “egregious,” Judge Robert Scola said in handing down his sentence.

Prosecutors had sought a harsher sentence of 30 to 37 months. But Scola said he took into account the nearly 14 months she spent in harsher conditions in a Colombian prison awaiting extradition. Gonzalez, who is out on bail at her daughter’s home in Miami, must surrender June 6 to begin her sentence.

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

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

Gonzalez’s lawyers showed in court a 2019 video in which top brass from Bergdorf Goodman, Saks and others praised the designer’s creativity, productivity and humanity. According to prosecutor Watts-Fitzgerald, the retailers probably regret today.

“They must regret ever experiencing this and if they heard it was presented in court they would cringe,” Watts-Fitzgerald said. “They have their own brand to protect.”