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Former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Agent José Irizarry was sentenced after shifting millions of dollars from stings to his pocket.
Irizarry, 47, was found guilty of conspiring to launder money with a Columbian cartel. Last year, he pleaded guilty to 19 federal charges, including bank fraud.
While working with the DEA, Irizarry filed false reports and ordered DEA staff to move money allocated for undercover stings to international accounts belonging to him and his co-conspirators, prosecutors said.
Irizarry said the international bank accounts were a profit-producing "slush fund" for official and personal travel of federal law enforcement, U.S. prosecutors, and confidential sources.
He had admitted his knowledge of money laundering led him to a luxurious life financed by $9 million he and his co-conspirators moved from undercover money laundering investigations.
Among the items he bought with the laundered money was a $30,000 Tiffany diamond ring for his wife, a $767,000 residence in the Caribbean city of Cartagena and luxury sports cars.
DEA agents, and prosecutors that worked with them, learned about Irizarry's spendings and heard stories of yacht parties before Irizarry's resignation in 2018.
Irizarry was entrusted with the government's use of front companies, shell bank accounts, and couriers to curb international drug trafficking while working for the DEA.
The DEA hired him and permitted him to manage sensitive financial transactions. However, Irizarry failed to pass a polygraph exam, declared bankruptcy, and kept a relationship with a suspected money launderer who would later become the godfather of his twin daughters.
María Dominguez, Irizarry's attorney, said her client assumed full responsibility for his actions but claims he never took more than $600,000.
Even as Irizarry admitted to his crimes, he blamed former colleagues at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for fostering a culture of corruption that desensitized him to the implications of violating the law.
"When my client joined the DEA he was schooled in how to be corrupt, he was schooled in how to break the law," his attorney, María Dominguez, said in court. "In this alternate universe it became easier and less suspect to accept money and gifts" from criminal informants who worked with the U.S. premier narcotics agency.
U.S. District Court Judge Charlene Honeywell in handing down her sentence expressed disgust with the DEA for its failings and said other agents corrupted by "the allure of easy money" also needed to be investigated.
"This has to stop," the judge said. "You were the one who got caught but it is apparent to this court that there are others."
The DEA declined to comment on Irizarry's claims.
"Former Special Agent Irizarry abused the trust of the American people when he repeatedly violated his oath as a federal law enforcement officer," Anne Milgram, the agency's new administrator, said in a statement. "Bringing him to justice reflects the principles of those who faithfully serve and uphold the values of DEA."
New questions were raised about whether his colleagues in the Miami field office, where Irizarry's criminal activity began, similarly abused the badge in their handling of confidential informants who every year move tens of millions of dollars in dirty money under the DEA's supervision.
Dominguez in court filings revealed that since Irizarry's arrest last year he has met with prosecutors for "endless hours" to provide information on the criminal activities of "fellow law-enforcement agents who initiated him in a life of crime."
Honeywell recently sealed "sensitive" documents filed in the criminal case, saying making their disclosure could potentially impede an ongoing criminal investigation, cause targets to flee and hinder cooperation from other witnesses. So far, other than Irizarry's wife, Nathalia Gomez-Irizarry, and a Colombian customs worker, nobody else has been charged in the conspiracy.
The U.S. Justice Department's Inspector General slammed the DEA in a report over the summer for failing to properly oversee what are supposed to be tightly monitored stings of the sort Irizarry worked on. As a result of the rebuke, which came on the heels of a string of scandals involving agents overseas, Milgram ordered an outside review of the agency's foreign operations, which is ongoing.
The DEA has been shaken by repeated cases of misconduct in recent years, including agents charged with wire fraud, bribery and selling firearms to drug traffickers. Thursday's hearing came just four months after another longtime DEA agent, Chad Scott, was sentenced to more than 13 years behind bars for stealing money from suspects, falsifying government records and committing perjury.
At Thursday's sentencing, Irizarry broke down in tears as he addressed the court, saying the biggest punishment was not being able to explain to his two young daughters why he would be going away for so long. He said when he became a federal law enforcement agent two decades ago he did so with a sense of great pride.
"Unfortunately, there came a time when I made a decision that went against the person who I was, that damaged my wife and embarrassed my country," he said. "I should've known better and I didn't. I failed."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
