DEA agent gets 12 years for conspiring with cartel
TAMPA, Fla. – A once-standout U.S. narcotics agent who used his badge to build a lavish lifestyle of expensive cars, parties on yachts and Tiffany jewels was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison Thursday for conspiring to launder money with a Colombian cartel.
But even as José 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 did not respond to requests for comment on Irizarry’s claims.
Irizarry’s allegations underscore the porous oversight he received during his career, in which he was entrusted with the government’s use of front companies, shell bank accounts and couriers to combat international drug trafficking.
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.”
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, an outside review of the agency’s foreign operations was ordered.
The DEA hired Irizarry, 47, and allowed him to handle sensitive financial transactions even after he failed a polygraph exam, declared bankruptcy and kept close ties to a suspected money launderer who would go on to become the godfather of the agent’s twin daughters with his Colombian wife.
He pleaded guilty last year to 19 federal counts, including bank fraud, admitting he parlayed his expertise in money laundering into a life of luxury that prosecutors said was bankrolled by $9 million he and his co-conspirators diverted from undercover money laundering investigations.
The spoils included a $30,000 Tiffany diamond ring for his wife, luxury sports cars and a $767,000 home in the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena. Before he resigned in 2018, Irizarry’s ostentatious habits and tales of raucous yacht parties had become well known among DEA agents and prosecutors with whom they worked.