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El Chapo ‘Tried to Kill Me’: A Final Witness Confronts the Drug Lord

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El Chapo ‘Tried to Kill Me’: A Final Witness Confronts the Drug Lord

She emerged from the shadows of the Sinaloa cartel to speak out in court as El Chapo was sentenced to life in prison.

“I lost my family, my friends. I became a shadow without a name,” Andrea Velez, a confidential F.B.I. informant, said at the sentencing of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord.

Time and again at the trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, figures from his past braved retaliation from the Sinaloa cartel to testify about his heinous crimes.

There was the professional assassin who described how Mr. Guzmán buried a man alive and burned two others in a bonfire. There was the brother of his closest partner who said he routinely bribed the police, the military and almost every other official in Mexico.

Even one of the kingpin’s mistresses took the stand against him and recalled how he forced her, naked, into a tunnel under a bathtub and dragged her along while fleeing from the Mexican marines.

On Wednesday, one last person from Mr. Guzmán’s past, who prosecutors say was instrumental in his downfall but never testified at the trial, appeared at his sentencing in New York to describe the emotional toll of having been a target of Mr. Guzmán’s assassins.

“I am a miracle of God, because Mr. Guzmán tried to kill me,” she said.

The woman, Andrea Velez, played a variety of roles in the long-running cartel case: a personal assistant to a drug trafficker; the victim of a murder plot; and a confidential F.B.I. informant.

Ms. Velez — age unknown — showed up at the sentencing in Federal District Court in Brooklyn to talk about how she had been affected by Mr. Guzmán’s crimes. Though Mr. Guzmán was found to be responsible for killing dozens of people, she was the only person to deliver what is known as a victim-impact statement.

In a tearful 15-minute speech, she told the judge, who ultimately sentenced the kingpin to life in prison, that around 2013, after her relationship with him had soured, he paid $1 million to a group of Hells Angels to assassinate her.

By appearing in court, Ms. Velez, one of the most enigmatic figures in one of the most operatic criminal trials in decades, finally joined the long list of witnesses against Mr. Guzmán. Those had already included the kingpin’s info-tech consultant, his chief Colombian supplier and one of his main American distributors.

Dressed in a black pantsuit with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, Ms. Velez talked about surviving the assassination plot, her lingering nightmares and the catharsis of finally confronting her would-be killer.

“I forgive you as I hope you can forgive me,” she said to Mr. Guzmán, sniffling.

She also said that, after seven years of working undercover for the government and in secrecy, she was ready to step out of the shadows. But even after her appearance, shadows still surround her.

According to testimony at Mr. Guzmán’s trial, Ms. Velez began around 2010 to work as an assistant for one of Mr. Guzmán’s lieutenants, the Colombian trafficker Alex Cifuentes.

She had met Mr. Cifuentes in Cancun and traveled on his behalf to Colombia, Ecuador and Canada, handling the details of his drug deals.

While that became her main job, she also had a side job running a modeling agency, according to witnesses at the trial. And in that role, testimony showed, she occasionally brokered paid relationships between her female friends and wealthy, powerful men.

Mr. Guzmán, always on the lookout for new talent, employed Ms. Velez himself at times, using her for what amounted to a string of dirty tricks.

In 2013, according to evidence at trial, she posed as a prostitute and served as bait for a corrupt Ecuadorean military officer the kingpin wanted to kidnap. Around the same time, after learning that Ms. Velez hosted private parties for a top Mexican general, Mr. Guzmán asked her to offer the general a $10 million bribe.

Neither the kingpin, nor Mr. Cifuentes, knew the F.B.I. had approached Ms. Velez in September 2012 and had persuaded her to spy on both of them. The agents’ leverage was a sealed indictment that had been returned against Ms. Velez four months earlier in Manhattan.

Much of Ms. Velez’s covert work for the F.B.I. remains shrouded in official secrecy, though prosecutors in the case recently revealed that she made never-released video recordings of at least one of Mr. Guzmán’s associates. They also disclosed that she helped Mr. Guzmán strike a deal with a ghost writer to tell his life story for a movie project.

Prosecutors added that she met with Mr. Guzmán several times and “provided information that helped government authorities eventually arrest and capture him.” They did not explain what that information was.

El Chapo ‘Tried to Kill Me’: A Final Witness Confronts the Drug Lord

In the courtroom on Wednesday, Ms. Velez said that when she first met Mr. Guzmán she was impressed by his apparent kindness and charisma. She saw him as polite, good mannered and concerned about her.

But ultimately, she said, she decided that she was suffering from a kind of Stockholm syndrome and was not the kingpin’s ally but his captive, who could only leave his organization “in a plastic bag and feet first.”

“My dreams of grandeur became my worst nightmares,” she told the court, erupting into sobs. “I lost my family, my friends. I became a shadow without a name.”

That name — if it indeed is her real name; at least one witness testified at Mr. Guzmán’s trial under a pseudonym — appears nowhere on the federal database of cases. Even though Ms. Velez was charged, pleaded guilty and has already been sentenced, there appears to be no public record of her case.

Entrepreneur, contributor, writer, and editor of Sostre News. With a powerful new bi-lingual speaking generation by his side, Sostre News is becoming the preferred site for the latest in Politics, Entertainment, Sports, Culture, Tech, Breaking and World News.

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Three Disney World Employees Among 17 Arrested in Florida Child Sex Sting

Three Disney World employees were among the 17 people arrested in a child sex sting operation in Florida, law enforcement officials announced on Wednesday.

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Three Disney World Employees Among 17 Arrested in Florida Child Sex Sting

Three Disney World employees were among the 17 people arrested in a child sex sting operation in Florida, law enforcement officials announced on Wednesday.

In the operation, dubbed “Operation Child Protector,” undercover officers posed as 13- and 14-year-old children on social media and online dating apps between July 27 and Aug. 1.

The undercovers made contact with each of the suspects before proposing they meet at a location in Polk County, where they were busted.

In total, the arrests led to 49 felony and two misdemeanor charges. Those arrested were aged 26 to 47. All were from Central Florida except for one 33-year-old man from California.

“What you see on this board … are deviants. Incredible deviants,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference on Tuesday, motioning to photos of the alleged pervs. “They travel from as far away as Clewiston, Florida. One even came from Los Angeles.”

“Much to their chagrin, instead of meeting with young children, they were met by law enforcement officers who were online undercover posing as children.”

Kenneth Javier Aquino, 26, a lifeguard at Animal Kingdom Lodge at Disney World, was arrested while still wearing his Disney polo shirt and swimsuit, according to the sheriff’s office.

Aquino engaged in an online conversation on social media with an officer, posing as a 13-year-old girl, authorities said. He then asked the “girl” to send photos, and sent her an explicit video of himself, police said.

Aquino told officers he is a Navy veteran and has a pregnant girlfriend.

Jonathan McGrew, a 34-year-old custodian at Disney World, was nabbed by an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.

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McGrew allegedly told the “girl” that he wanted her to come over and have sex with him and his girlfriend, 29-year-old Savannah Lawrence, who also works as a custodian at tourist mecca.

McGrew sent her explicit videos of him and Lawrence performing sexual acts on each other, authorities said.

A rep for Disney World didn’t immediately return a message.

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China Reports First Human Death from Monkey B Virus

China has reported the first human infection and death in the country caused by a rare infectious disease found in primates known as the Monkey B virus.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said a 53-year-old veterinary surgeon who worked in a research institute specializing in nonhuman primate breeding in Beijing dissected two monkeys in March and became ill about a month later.

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China Reports First Human Death from Monkey B Virus

China has reported the first human infection and death in the country caused by a rare infectious disease found in primates known as the Monkey B virus.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said a 53-year-old veterinary surgeon who worked in a research institute specializing in nonhuman primate breeding in Beijing dissected two monkeys in March and became ill about a month later.

He began experiencing nausea, vomiting, fever and neurological issues, and died in May.

Blood and saliva samples were tested and researchers in April found evidence of the Monkey B virus, also known as the herpes B virus.

Researchers said a male doctor and female nurse who were in close contact with the victim tested negative for the virus.

The Monkey B virus is prevalent among macaque monkeys but infection among humans is extremely rare. Since the virus was identified in 1932, just 50 cases have been reported, with the majority of those in North America. Untreated B virus infections in humans are serious, however, with a fatality rate of about 80 percent.

Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, and progress to more serious complications such as swelling of the brain and spinal cord.

Laboratory workers and veterinarians in close contact with the animals are most at risk as people typically get infected with the virus if they are bitten or scratched by an infected macaque, or have contact with the monkey’s eyes, nose or mouth.

But the virus is unlikely to mutate in a way that poses a problem to the general population. Just one case of human-to-human transmission of the virus has ever been documented.

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U.S. Remembers 9/11 Terrorist Attacks as The Pandemic Changes Tribute Traditions

Americans are commemorating 9/11 with tributes that have been altered by coronavirus precautions and woven into the presidential campaign, drawing both President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden to pay respects at the same memorial without crossing paths.

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U.S. Remembers 9/11 Terrorist Attacks as The Pandemic Changes Tribute Traditions

Americans are commemorating 9/11 with tributes that have been altered by coronavirus precautions and woven into the presidential campaign, drawing both President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden to pay respects at the same memorial without crossing paths.

In New York, a dispute over coronavirus-safety precautions is leading to split-screen remembrances Friday, one at the Sept. 11 memorial plaza at the World Trade Center and another on a nearby corner. The Pentagon’s observance will be so restricted that not even victims’ families can attend, though small groups can visit the memorial there later in the day.

Trump and Biden are both headed — at different times — to the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Trump is speaking at the morning ceremony, the White House said. Biden plans to pay respects there in the afternoon after attending the observance at the 9/11 memorial in New York.

Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence is also due at ground zero — and then at the alternate ceremony a few blocks away.

In short, the anniversary of 9/11 is a complicated occasion in a maelstrom of a year, as the U.S. grapples with a health crisis, searches its soul over racial injustice and prepares to choose a leader to chart a path forward.

Still, 9/11 families say it’s important for the nation to pause and remember the hijacked-plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the trade center, at the Pentagon and near Shanksville on Sept. 11, 2001, shaping American policy, perceptions of safety and daily life in places from airports to office buildings.

“I know that the heart of America beats on 9/11 and, of course, thinks about that tragic day. I don’t think that people forget,” says Anthoula Katsimatides, who lost her brother John and is now on the board of the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum.

Friday will mark Trump’s second time observing the 9/11 anniversary at the Flight 93 memorial, where he made remarks in 2018. Biden spoke at the memorial’s dedication in 2011, when he was vice president.

The ground zero ceremony in New York has a longstanding custom of not allowing politicians to speak, though they can attend. Biden did so as vice president in 2010, and Trump as a candidate in 2016.

Though the candidates will be focused on the commemorations, the political significance of their focus on Shanksville is hard to ignore: Pennsylvania is a must-win state for both. Trump won it by less than a percentage point in 2016.

Around the country, some communities have canceled 9/11 commemorations because of the pandemic, while others are going ahead, sometimes with modifications.

The New York memorial is changing one of its ceremony’s central traditions: having relatives read the names of the dead, often adding poignant tributes.

Thousands of family members are still invited. But they’ll hear a recording of the names from speakers spread around the vast plaza, a plan that memorial leaders felt would avoid close contact at a stage but still allow families to remember their loved ones at the place where they died.

But some victims’ relatives felt the change robbed the observance of its emotional impact. A different 9/11-related group, the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, set up its own, simultaneous ceremony a few blocks away, saying there’s no reason that people can’t recite names while keeping a safe distance.

The two organizations also tussled over the Tribute in Light, a pair of powerful beams that shine into the night sky near the trade center and evoke its fallen twin towers. The 9/11 memorial initially canceled the display, citing virus-safety concerns for the installation crew. After the Tunnel to Towers Foundation vowed to put up the lights instead, the memorial changed course with help from its chairman, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Tunnel to Towers, meanwhile, arranged to display single beams for the first time at the Shanksville memorial and the Pentagon.

Over the years, the anniversary also has become a day for volunteering. Because of the pandemic, the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance organization is encouraging people this year to make donations or take other actions that can be accomplished at home.

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