Trial began this week in San Diego federal court for a California businesswoman accused of carrying out a fraud scheme with her brother that allegedly began just weeks after she was released early from prison when former President Donald Trump commuted her sentence from a previous fraud conviction.
During opening statements Tuesday, a defense attorney mentioned Adriana Isabel Camberos’ prior conviction but did not tell the jury that she was among the 76 people granted clemency by Trump on his last day in office in January 2021.
Prosecutors allege that Camberos, 53, and her brother Andres “Andy” Enrique Camberos, 45, operated a fraud scheme similar to the one that previously sent Adriana Camberos and her husband to prison.
The government alleges that the siblings conspired to “unduly enrich themselves” by purchasing wholesale groceries and other consumer goods at a steep discount on the promise that they would be marketed in Mexico, but instead turned around and sold the products in the more lucrative U.S. market, undercutting business rivals.
A defense attorney for Andy Camberos, the founder and former CEO of Grasshopper Dispensary, Chula Vista’s first legal cannabis retailer, told the jury during opening statements that prosecutors weren’t wrong, but that selling Mexico-bound products in the U.S. was a “sharp business practice” and not an illegal conspiracy.
“We agree they engaged in product diversion,” Dan Goldman said, telling jurors that the practice is an open secret in the world of manufacturing, distributing and selling consumer goods. He said the way the Camberos siblings went about running several distribution companies was not illegal.
“You may find it distasteful or unethical,” Goldman told the jury. “But this is not a court of morality. This is a court of law.”
The defense attorney said the siblings should also be shielded from conviction because the entire time they were running the allegedly unlawful scheme, they were acting on the legal advice of several lawyers who greenlit their business practices.
The siblings face charges of wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. Prosecutors allege they paid themselves more than $12 million each and laundered the unlawful proceeds through real estate investments, a cryptocurrency account and the purchases of luxury vehicles, including a Ferrari and three Range Rovers.
Both siblings were thrust into the public spotlight in early 2021 when Trump commuted Adriana’s sentence about halfway through her 26-month federal prison term in a previous case. At the time, she went by her now ex-husband’s last name of Shayota. The White House said her clemency petition was supported by Chula Vista Mayor John McCann, who at the time was a member of the City Council. McCann said it was Andy Camberos, a former high school classmate, who asked him to support the effort to free his sister.
The commutation was a remarkable benefit for a mostly unknown federal prisoner on the same day Trump pardoned the likes of Steven Bannon, his former strategist, the rapper Lil Wayne and former San Diego-area Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
Adriana Camberos went …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
