GAME OVER
Online star busted at JFK with load of coke ‘Poor’ excuse: My Maria-hit kin needed the cash
Online video gamer Nicole Lorenzo Cortez, who competes in a virtual world where a deadly storm rages around her, says she smuggled cocaine to New York to help her family recover from the real-life storm that ravaged her hometown in Puerto Rico.
Cortez, 20, who hopes to make a living playing the online game Fortnite, flew to Kennedy Airport Jan. 6 with about 30 pounds of cocaine stashed in two suitcases, one red, the other silver.
She was supposed to get $4,000 for the trip.
Cortez paced nervously at the baggage carousel, unaware the feds were already waiting for her because another smuggler caught a month earlier had a cell phone loaded with pictures of drivers’ licenses, including hers.
Cortez let Drug Enforcement Administration agents open her suitcases, and they found the drugs inside.
She pleaded guilty in April to a federal drug possession charge. Sentencing guidelines call for her to spend 37 to 46 months in prison -- but Cortez’s lawyer says she deserves probation combined with mental health and substance abuse treatment because she is focused on gaming.
Top professional gamers can make more than $100,000 per year.
“Nicole considers herself to be one of the best female gamers in Puerto Rico and takes pride in being a young woman succeeding in a field largely dominated by men,” her lawyer, defender Allegra Glashausser, wrote in court papers filed last week.
“Nicole’s ability to set goals and succeed is further illustrated by her work at gaming competitions, most recently, playing Fortnite,” Glashausser said.
Cortez goes by the handle EmphyZ on the streaming site Twitch, where she has 788 followers. A recent video broadcast of her playing Fortnite was viewed more than 9,300 times. Fortnite is a wildly popular online game where 100 players compete to be the last person standing in a constantly-shrinking island landscape.
“Nicole no longer wants to be the best female gamer in Puerto Rico, she wants to be the best gamer in Puerto Rico, period,” reads an Aug. 8 report in Glashausser’s filing.
Glashausser also casts Cortez as a teenage bullying victim who struggles with drug abuse and mental health issues. Cortez’s decision to smuggle drugs was the “impetuous” choice of a young woman desperate to help her family after Hurricane Maria, the lawyer contends.
Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, leaving a death toll that some experts put at more than 4,600.
The storm ravaged homes and businesses in Barceloneta, Cortez’s home town. Cortez’s house had intermittent generator power for months. Its roof leaked, she had trouble finding food and water, and her mom lost her job at a pharmaceutical factory, Glasshauser wrote.
“Nicole thought that bringing drugs to New York was a ‘quick fix’ for the family’s financial crisis,” Glashausser wrote. “Nicole now fully recognizes the hurt her selfish decision to bring drugs to New York caused society and how much more hurt it would have caused if she was not caught.”
The feds note that Cortez’s decision to smuggle drugs was not spur-of-the-moment. They knew as early as Dec. 7 that she was on her way after they downloaded the other courier’s phone data.
A DEA spokeswoman declined comment on the case, calling it an “ongoing investigation.”
When asked to talk about the case, and the hurricane, Cortez told the Daily News on Thursday, “I have to think about it ... I don’t think I feel comfortable talking about it.”
Cortez has been free on $100,000 bond since Jan. 11. She’s to be sentenced Sept. 7 in Brooklyn federal court.