Her sentencing Monday is the latest chapter in a long-running legal saga involving the famed designer, whose handbags appeared on “Sex and the City” and were worn by celebrities including Britney Spears, Salma Hayek and Victoria Beckham.
According to prosecutors, the bags were transported from Gonzalez’s native Colombia to the United States by couriers on commercial flights, then transported to Gonzalez’s showroom in New York to be displayed and sold to high-end clients, including at events such as New York Fashion Week.
Prosecutors said the scheme continued even after Gonzalez, 71, received warnings from U.S. authorities in 2016 and 2017.
Gonzalez was arrested in Colombia in July 2022 and served more than a year in prison there while awaiting extradition to the United States. She pleaded guilty in November 2023 to one count of conspiracy and two counts of smuggling. She will serve a shorter prison sentence in the United States because of the time she served in Colombia.
In an email to the Washington Post, Sam Rabin, Gonzalez’s lawyer, accused prosecutors of unfairly targeting his client.
“While most major handbag designers rush to submit samples at fashion shows, sometimes without the proper documentation, she alone was singled out for prosecution by the Justice Department,” Rabin wrote, arguing that “his case should have been handled administratively rather than through arrest and arrest.” pursuit.”
Prosecutors said that between February 2016 and April 2019, Gonzalez and his associates recruited couriers. — including friends, relatives and employees of Gonzalez’s company — to fly from Colombia to the United States with handbags made of caiman or python skin — and instructed couriers to report to US authorities if questioned that the bags were intended as gifts for friends.
The Justice Department said the caiman and python species used to make the bags were protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an international treaty signed by the United States. United and Colombia.
Gonzalez’s lawyers acknowledged that the designer shipped some goods without proper permits, but argued that only “a very small percentage” was imported illegally, and said those products were typically shipped on tight deadlines for events. “essential to the survival of his business”. »
Markenzy Lapointe, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said in a press release announcing Gonzalez’s sentencing: “Business pressure, filing deadlines, or other economic factors do not justify anyone knowingly mocking of the system and tries to write its own exceptions. wildlife trafficking laws.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald argued that Gonzalez’s actions were “money motivated,” adding that the designer “tried to rewrite the law for herself, to do things to his way,” according to the Associated Press.
Before being sentenced, a visibly emotional Gonzalez apologized to the court for her actions, the AP reported. “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. “Under pressure, I made bad decisions.”
In a memo written before the sentencing hearing, Gonzalez’s lawyers painted a picture of the designer’s improbable rise to commercial success and her tragic personal situation, and said she was a person “universally respected, hardworking and charitable” who had made mistakes.
According to the memo, Gonzalez lost her father when she was 9 and was raised by her mother. Gonzalez started her business in the 1980s, after what her lawyers described as a “difficult and heartbreaking divorce from the father of her children.” She started by selling belts that she made at home with her sewing machine to friends and family. This business was a success and she opened a store in Cali, Colombia. In 1998, she sold her first collection in the United States, in the luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman.
As Gonzalez’s brand awareness grew, so did his business: According to his lawyers, before the pandemic, he employed more than 300 people in Colombia.
In March 2017, Gonzalez lost his son to suicide. Her lawyers argued in their memo that her son’s death was linked to Gonzalez’s “state of mind” during part of the time U.S. authorities say she was directing the criminal importation conspiracy.
In federal court Monday, Judge Robert Scola sentenced Gonzalez to a year and a half in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He placed his company, Gzuniga, on probation for three years and banned him from engaging in wildlife-related goods for three years. Gonzalez’s main associate, Mauricio Giraldo, was sentenced to about 22 months in prison, and a third associate has not yet been sentenced.
In handing down his sentence, Judge Scola said it was particularly “egregious” that Gonzalez continued to illegally import his bags for years after receiving warnings from authorities, according to the AP. His sentence was less than what prosecutors initially requested. Rabin in his email said Gonzalez did not intend to appeal.
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