WASHINGTON (AP) — A Mexican drug cartel member accused of faking his death to avoid capture was sentenced Thursday to more than 11 years in U.S. prison for his money laundering role in one of his home country's largest and most violent narcotics trafficking organizations.
Cristian Fernando Gutierrez-Ochoa was living in California under a phony identity when he was arrested in November 2024. The father of his longtime girlfriend is Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, the fugitive Jalisco New Generation boss known as El Mencho.
Gutierrez-Ochoa was wanted in Mexico on suspicion of kidnapping two Mexican Navy members in 2021 to secure the release of El Mencho’s wife after she had been arrested by Mexican authorities, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration agent’s affidavit.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington sentenced Gutierrez-Ochoa to 11 years and eight months in federal prison. Howell said the violent cartel, known by its Spanish-language acronym CJNG, also is a “dangerous force” in the United States.
“It's a dangerous way to make a living,” Howell said. “It's a dangerous way to live.”
Gutierrez-Ochoa told the judge that he accepts responsibility for his “mistake.”
“I regret all of this,” he said through a translator. “Never again will I make a mistake like this in my life.”
Justice Department prosecutors recommended a 14-year prison sentence for the 28-year-old Gutierrez-Ochoa, who pleaded guilty in June to conspiring to launder millions of dollars in drug trafficking proceeds. Prosecutors described him as a dangerous, trained operative who was secretly embedded in the U.S. to do the CJNG cartel's bidding.
“The CJNG kills, tortures, and corrupts to traffic staggering quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs into the United States and elsewhere — all for profiting and enrichment, which in turn fund the cycle of violence, ravaging countless lives and communities,” prosecutors wrote.
Gutierrez-Ochoa's lawyers asked for a seven-year prison sentence. They said he was remorseful and accepted responsibility for his criminal conduct.
“Mr. Gutierrez’s rehabilitation is not performative," they wrote. "It reflects a young man who now fully understands the magnitude of his mistakes and who seeks to rebuild his life with integrity.”
El Mencho told associates that he killed Gutierrez-Ochoa for lying, but Gutierrez-Ochoa actually faked his death and fled from Mexico to Riverside, California, authorities have said. Gutierrez-Ochoa and his girlfriend, a U.S. citizen, lived “a CJNG-sponsored life of abundance” in a $1.2 million home purchased with laundered cartel money, according to prosecutors.
The State Department has offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of El Mencho.
In February, President Donald Trump's administration designated CJNG as a foreign terrorist organization, giving authorities new tools to prosecute cartel associates.
Howell has sentenced other CJNG leaders.
José González Valencia, a brother-in-law of El Mencho, was sentenced in June to 30 years in a prison after pleading guilty to a drug trafficking conspiracy charge. El Mencho’s son, Rubén Oseguera, known as El Menchito, was sentenced in March to life in prison after a jury convicted him of conspiring to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine for U.S. importation and using a firearm in a drug conspiracy.
FILE - A view of the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, Sept. 22, 2014. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Information from a tipster who had a strange encounter with another man on a sidewalk outside Brown University was key to police identifying the suspect they believe killed two students at the school and then two days later gunned down a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.
Known only as “John” in a Providence police affidavit, the source is being hailed by investigators as the key figure who gave law enforcement the details needed to determine who was behind the Brown shooting, as well as the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who was shot in his Brookline home Monday.
Ever since a shooter unloaded more than 40 rounds inside a Brown engineering building, anxiety and frustration has plagued the Providence, Rhode Island, community as police appeared no closer to identifying the person.
Yet on the sixth day of the investigation, the case gathered steam, ending with police announcing late Thursday they had found the suspected gunman dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The tipster, John, was the reason why.
“He blew this case right open," said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha of the information provided by the individual that resulted in finding the gunman nearly 24 hours later.
“When you crack it, you crack it,” he said.
According to police, John had several encounters with 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente before Saturday's attack. As police posted images of a person of interest — now identified as Neves Valente — John began posting on the social media forum Reddit that he recognized the person and theorized that police should look into “possibly a rental” grey Nissan. Reddit users urged him to tell the FBI, and John said he did. The police affidavit said they learned about the tip on Dec. 16, three days after the shooting and a day after the tip line was created.
Up until that point, the police affidavit says officials had not connected a vehicle to the possible shooter.
That detail led them to get more video of a Nissan Sentra sedan with Florida plates and enabled Providence police officers to tap into a network of more than 70 street cameras operated around the city by surveillance company Flock Safety.
The affidavit says John gave investigators additional critical details: he encountered Neves Valente in the bathroom of the engineering building just hours before the attack, where John noted the suspect's clothing was “inappropriate and inadequate for the weather.”
John also bumped into Neves Valente outside, mere blocks from the building, where John watched Neves Valente “suddenly” turn around from the Nissan when he saw John. What ensued was then a “game of cat and mouse,” according to John's testimony — where the two would encounter each other and Neves Valente would run away.
At one point, John says he yelled out "Your car is back there, why are you circling the block?”
“The Suspect responded, ‘I don’t know you from nobody,’ then Suspect repeatedly asked, ’Why are you harassing me?'” according to the affidavit.
John told police he eventually saw Neves Valente approach the Nissan sedan once more and decided to walk away.
“Respectfully, I have said all I have to say on the matter to the right people,” John wrote on Reddit Wednesday night.
As of Thursday, it's unknown whether John will receive the $50,000 reward the FBI had offered for information about the Brown shooting.
Ted Docks, special agent in charge of the FBI, said it was possible when asked by reporters.
“It would be logical to think that, absolutely, that individual would be entitled to that,” he said.
Associated Press writer Matt OBrien contributed to this report.
Law enforcement officers search the area for the Brown University shooting suspect, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, in Salem, N.H. (AP Photo/Reba Saldanha)
Law enforcement officers are seen outside a storage facility where a suspect in the shooting at Brown University was found dead, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, in Salem, N.H. (AP Photo/Reba Saldanha)
A poster seeking information about the campus shooting suspect is seen on the campus of Brown University, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
