A New York City police officer who moonlighted as a bodyguard for the wife of convicted Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was arrested in a drug sting Wednesday after prosecutors say he transported cocaine for an undercover officer posing as a drug dealer.
Ishmael Bailey, 36, cried as he was arraigned Wednesday night. He pleaded not guilty to charges including possession and sale of a controlled substance, receiving bribes and official misconduct.
The police department suspended the 12-year officer without pay. A judge ordered him jailed on $25,000 cash bail or $50,000 bond. Bailey faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Police Commissioner James O'Neill said Bailey had allegedly "betrayed his sacred oath" and that the internal affairs investigators who built the case "proved that there is no place for corruption within the NYPD."
"When an individual officer intentionally tarnishes the shield worn proudly by thousands before him, he will be held to the highest account the law provides," O'Neill said.
Brian O'Neill, an assistant chief in the internal affairs bureau, said Bailey had a history of disciplinary problems and was already under investigation for another matter before he provided security for Guzman's wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, at his July sentencing in Brooklyn.
Bailey's involvement in Guzman's case did not spur the sting, which Brian O'Neill described as an "integrity test." No other people were targeted and no other suspects are being sought, he said.
Bailey's lawyer, Jeffrey Cohen, said he's investigating the matter and his client "will continue to plead his innocence."
According to prosecutors, Bailey first met with an undercover officer who posed as a drug dealer Aug. 27 and agreed to provide security in exchange for cash as cocaine was taken across Queens.
Prosecutors said he met with the officer again Sept. 4, held open a duffel bag as a kilogram of cocaine and two fakes were placed inside and then delivered the bag to another undercover officer — all in exchange for $2,500.
Bailey met with the officer once more Sept. 12, prosecutors said, and was given $10,000 in cash to pick up two kilograms of cocaine. Bailey then met with another undercover officer and gave that person the cash in exchange for one package containing a kilogram of cocaine and one that was a fake.
Guzman was convicted in February of murder conspiracy charges, drug trafficking, money laundering and firearms possession. He is serving a life sentence at the federal supermax prison facility in Florence, Colorado.
O'Neill said investigators believe Bailey only guarded Aispuro one time — at Guzman's sentencing.
"He was actually a subcontract by the other security guard who was there," O'Neill said. "He had no direct contact with El Chapo or the wife."
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A soon-to-be-released Biden administration review of Israel's use of U.S.-provided weapons in its war in Gaza does not conclude that Israel has violated the terms for their use, according to three people who have been briefed on the matter.
The report is expected to be sharply critical of Israel, even though it didn’t conclude that Israel violated terms of U.S.-Israel weapons agreements, according to one U.S. official.
The Biden administration's first-of-its-kind assessment of its close ally's conduct of the war comes after seven months of airstrikes, ground fighting and aid restrictions that have claimed the lives of nearly 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
A presidential directive agreed to by the White House under pressure from congressional Democrats and others mandated the review of whether Israel had complied with international law in its use of U.S.-provided weapons and other security support during the course of the war.
Two U.S. officials and a third person briefed on the findings of the national security memorandum to be submitted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Congress discussed the matter before the report's release. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not yet public.
A senior Biden administration official said the memorandum is expected to be released later Friday, but declined to comment on the findings.
Axios first reported on the memorandum's finding.
Lawmakers and others who advocated for the review said President Joe Biden and previous American leaders have followed a double standard when enforcing U.S. laws governing how foreign militaries use U.S. support, an accusation the Biden administration denies. They had urged the administration to make a straightforward legal determination of whether there was credible evidence that specific Israeli airstrikes on schools, crowded neighborhoods, medical workers, aid convoys and other targets, and restrictions on aid shipments into Gaza, violated the laws of war and human rights.
Their opponents argued that a U.S. finding against Israel would weaken it at a time it is battling Hamas and other Iran-backed groups. Any sharply critical findings on Israel are sure to add to pressure on Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military and further heighten tensions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government over its conduct of the war against Hamas.
Any finding against Israel also could endanger Biden’s support in this year's presidential elections from some voters who keenly support Israel.
The Democratic administration took one of the first steps toward conditioning military aid to Israel in recent days when it paused a shipment of 3,500 bombs out of concern over Israel’s threatened offensive on Rafah, a southern city crowded with more than a million Palestinians, a senior administration official said.
The presidential directive, agreed to in February, obligated the Defense and State departments to conduct “an assessment of any credible reports or allegations that such defense articles and, as appropriate, defense services, have been used in a manner not consistent with international law, including international humanitarian law.”
T he agreement also obligated them to tell Congress whether they deemed that Israel has acted to “arbitrarily to deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly,” delivery of any U.S.-supported humanitarian aid into Gaza for starving civilians there.
At the time the White House agreed to the review, it was working to head off moves from Democratic lawmakers and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont to start restricting shipments of weapons to Israel.
Israel launched its offensive after an Oct. 7 assault into Israel, led by Hamas, killed about 1,200 people. Two-thirds of the Palestinians killed since then have been women and children, according to local health officials. U.S. and U.N. officials say Israeli restrictions on food shipments since Oct. 7 have brought on full-fledged famine in northern Gaza.
Human rights groups long have accused Israeli security forces of committing abuses against Palestinians and have accused Israeli leaders of failing to hold those responsible to account. In January, in a case brought by South Africa, the top U.N. court ordered Israel to do all it could to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive.
Israel says it is following all U.S. and international law, that it investigates allegations of abuse by its security forces and that its campaign in Gaza is proportional to the existential threat it says is posed by Hamas.
Biden in December said “indiscriminate bombing” was costing Israel international backing. After Israeli forces targeted and killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in April, the Biden administration for the first time signaled it might cut military aid to Israel if it didn’t change its handling of the war and humanitarian aid.
Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, in the 1980s and early 1990s, were the last presidents to openly hold back weapons or military financing to try to push Israel to change its actions in the region or toward Palestinians.
A report to the Biden administration by an unofficial, self-formed panel including military experts, academics and former State Department officials detailed Israeli strikes on aid convoys, journalists, hospitals, schools and refugee centers and other sites. They argued that the civilian death toll in those strikes — such as an Oct. 31 strike on an apartment building reported to have killed 106 civilians — was disproportionate to the blow against any military target.
Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at a hospital in Rafah, Gaza, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
U.S. President Joe Biden boards Marine One at Moffett Airfield in Mountain View, Calif., Thursday, May 9, 2024. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Pool Photo via AP)
