Jay Weaver
A Colombian designer whose creations were coveted by celebrities around the globe — from pop star Britney Spears to cast members of HBO’s hit series “Sex and the City” — was sentenced to 18 months in prison Monday after being convicted of illegally shipping luxury handbags made of exotic reptile skins through Miami to New York.
Since she had already been incarcerated for most of that time in her homeland before being extradited to the United States last August, Nancy Teresa Gonzalez de Barberi will only have to spend one to two months in prison in this country.
In November, Gonzalez pleaded guilty to conspiracy and smuggling charges in Miami federal court rather than make a plea deal because her defense lawyers and U.S. prosecutors were at odds over the evidence. Gonzalez, 70, will remain free on bail until June 6, when U.S. District Judge Robert Scola ordered her to surrender to prison authorities.
Her lawyers, Sam Rabin and Andrea Lopez, who argued for no prison time in the United States, called Scola’s decision “very fair.” Prosecutors asked the judge to give her a sentence of 2-1/2 years.
Despite the designer’s tarnished reputation, her brand name, “Nancy Gonzalez,” was once so hot among the haute couture mavens that actor Stanley Tucci touted it in the hit movie “The Devil Wears Prada,” memoralizing the handbag’s status.
Gonzalez sold her bags for more than $2,000 each to the likes of the “Princess of Pop” Britney Spears, Salma Hayek and Victoria Beckham. She maintained that the merchandise her company sent via Miami to high-end New York retailers was made with skins from farm-raised reptiles such as caiman and python, not from protected wildlife species — contrary to the prosecutors’ view of the evidence.
Gonzalez’s lawyers said her handbags, purses and wallets were made from the skins of captive-bred caiman and python, not technically from wildlife protected under international endangered species laws. They also noted that she had obtained proper licenses and declarations for the vast majority of her merchandise shipped to the United States.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Justice Department disagreed, saying Gonzalez illegally imported merchandise made with the skins of endangered caiman and python species by using couriers to carry hundreds of her handbags without proper permits or declarations via Miami to New York, citing the indictment filed in South Florida.
“The press of business, production deadlines or other economic factors are not justification for anyone to knowingly flout the system and attempt to write their own exceptions to wildlife trafficking laws,” U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe said in a statement after Monday’s sentencing.
The indictment charged the designer, her New York-based company, Gzuniga Ltd., and two employees who worked for her Colombian manufacturing firm.
On Monday, the judge ordered Gzuniga, which pleaded guilty along with Gonzalez, to forfeit its inventory of handbags that was previously seized by federal authorities and banned the company from any activities involving commercial trade in wildlife for three years. It was also sentenced to three years’ probation.
Her associate, Diego Mauricio Rodriguez Giraldo, who also pleaded guilty, was sentenced to nearly two years but was given credit for already serving all that time in Colombia before his extradition and in Miami while being detained before trial. Another associate, John Camilo Aguilar Jarmillo, also pleaded guilty in April and awaits sentencing.
The indictment accused Gonzalez, her U.S. firm, Gzuniga, and the other two defendants of soliciting friends, relatives and employees of her manufacturing company in Colombia to act as couriers and transport hundreds of designer handbags on themselves or in their luggage while traveling on passenger airlines to Miami International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport between February 2016 and April 2019.
Another one of Gonzalez’s employees, Paola Soto, played a central role as a courier, according to prosecutors. She pleaded guilty in 2022 to conspiracy and smuggling charges and received an initial prison sentence of 2 1/2 years under a plea agreement with prosecutors Tom Watts-FitzGerald and R.J. Powers. However, her punishment was reduced to about nine months after she cooperated as a witness against Gonzalez and the other defendants.
Another staffer, Eric Schneider, general manager of the Gzuniga showroom in Manhattan, also pleaded guilty in 2022 to a misdemeanor charge as he cooperated with prosecutors. He was convicted of “knowingly” selling about 1,000 caiman-skin designer handbags and clutches that were made from endangered species and illegally imported from Colombia.
“Once the designer handbags were smuggled into the United States, they were delivered or shipped to the Gzuniga showroom in Manhattan, New York, where they were put on display for high-end retailers to view and purchase for re-sale in their stores,” said a news release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami after Gonzalez’s extradition last year. “The average retail price for these ‘Nancy Gonzalez’ brand handbags was over $2,000.”
The Colombian’s creative purses were sold at Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus and other upscale department stores. They were also clutched by characters on HBO’s immensely popular rom-com series, “Sex in the City,” set in the very New York borough, Manhattan, where Gonzalez made her first big splash.
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