Mexico to investigate US indictment of officials for alleged Sinaloa Cartel ties, Sheinbaum says

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico is vowing an independent investigation of 10 current and former officials indicted in the U.S. on charges of drug trafficking and illegal possession of weapons in connection with the Sinaloa Cartel.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Thursday she wouldn’t let foreign governments meddle in her country’s affairs to serve their own political purposes.

The indictment in New York on Wednesday charged a number of sitting officials in Sinaloa, including members of Sheinbaum's progressive Morena party, with drug trafficking and illegal possession of weapons. It fueled a political firestorm at a time when Sheinbaum has sought to offset U.S. pressures to crack down on cartels while appeasing her own base with a message of Mexican sovereignty.

Mexico's government said that it had seen an extradition request from the U.S. for 10 citizens and added that the request didn't provide enough evidence to warrant an arrest.

The highest profile official implicated was Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya, a top Morena official and close ally of Sheinbaum's mentor and predecessor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Sheinbaum on Thursday said that Mexican prosecutors would investigate the cases and gather their own information to “determine whether there is evidence establishing that the allegations made by U.S. authorities have a legal basis for requesting arrest warrants.”

The president previously said that she had seen no evidence to back up the U.S. allegations. She added that she was ready to put her foot down if Mexican investigations find “no clear evidence” that those charged committed a crime.

“If it is evident that the Justice Department’s charges are politically motivated, let there be absolutely no doubt: under no circumstances will we allow a foreign government to interfere in decisions that are the exclusive prerogative of the Mexican people,” Sheinbaum said.

The accusations against the governor of Sinaloa ramp up already mounting pressures on the Trump administration on Mexico, as many analysts note they haven't seen the U.S. target a high-ranking official still in office.

Carlos Pérez Ricart, a professor the Mexican Center for Research and Economic Education, the move marks “a foreign government provoking a political earthquake in Mexico” to back its own political rhetoric around drug-trafficking and intervention in Latin America.

“U.S. justice is currently serving an interventionist foreign policy with specific objectives in Mexico,” he added.

Rocha, the governor, categorically rejected the accusations on Wednesday, writing on a social media post that they “lack any basis in truth.”

The indictment also charged the mayor of Sinaloa’s capital and a senator, both from Sheinbaum’s Morena party, and other officials that held positions not affiliated with any political party. Rocha and other officials called it an attack on their left-leaning political movement.

According to the indictment, the defendants shielded Sinaloa Cartel leaders from investigation, arrest, and prosecution, fed the cartel with sensitive law enforcement and military information, directed members of state and local law enforcement agencies to protect drug loads and let the cartel commit brutal drug-related violence without consequence. In return, it said, the defendants received millions of dollars in drug money.

The cartel is one of eight Latin American criminal groups that the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization.

The indictment of Rocha, who was born in the same town as “El Chapo,” was particularly notable because the governor was embroiled in a scandal in 2024 involving the Sinaloa Cartel. His name was published in a letter written by a then-Sinaloa Cartel capo who was kidnapped by leaders of a rival faction of the cartel and handed off to law enforcement in the U.S. In the letter, the capo said that when he was kidnapped he believed he was on his way to meet with Rocha.

Mexico's Deputy Attorney General Ulises Lara said in a video released Wednesday night that Mexico's government would only approve of the extradition if there is sufficient evidence, which they so far haven't been provided by Washington.

He noted that sitting officials would need to be impeached before any major actions by Mexican authorities to lift their legal immunity and criticized the U.S. release of details about the case, calling them “detrimental to the confidential nature of criminal proceedings.”

Associated Press journalist Fabiola Sánchez contributed to this report from Mexico City.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

FILE - Sinaloa state Gov. Ruben Rocha waves as he takes part in an annual earthquake drill in Culiacan, Mexico, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)

President Claudia Sheinbaum gives her daily morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum arrives at the National Palace to give her daily morning press conference in Mexico City, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein 's lawyers questioned his accuser at his rape retrial Thursday, making clear they planned to explore her conflicted feelings and complex history with the onetime Hollywood powerbroker.

It's the third time Jessica Mann has had to answer his lawyers' questions in a New York court. But different attorneys are now defending the ex-studio boss whose downfall powered the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct. The first several hours of back-and-forth were tense but didn't hit the emotional boiling points of Mann's prior cross-examinations.

Weinstein lawyer Teny Geragos began questioning Mann on Wednesday by seizing on her complicated feelings about Weinstein during a knotty relationship that involved some consensual sexual encounters.

Under prosecutors' questioning earlier, Mann said that despite the alleged rape, she loved “a part of him” because he could be kind and encouraging about her personal struggles and professional dreams, and that the two had “some pretty human moments” together.

“What did he do for you that made parts of you really love him?” Geragos asked.

“It was the validation,” Mann said.

When Geragos went on to ask about the “human moments," Mann said she once slapped Weinstein, thinking he was inviting it as sex play, but that he later told her, “Jess, that's not you.”

“So when you were talking about the validation that you received … and the human moments that you shared with Harvey, it was that you slapped him?” Geragos asked.

Mann said she instead was referring to his remark that “that's not you.”

Court ended for the day soon afterward. As it resumed Thursday, Geragos quizzed Mann about her early interactions with Weinstein.

Weinstein, 73, is on trial for the third time on a charge accusing him of raping Mann in a New York hotel in March 2013. He was initially convicted in 2020, but an appeals court overturned that verdict. During his first retrial, the jury couldn't reach a decision on the rape charge.

Mann also alleges that Weinstein raped her again in Beverly Hills, California, in late 2013 or early 2014. He has never been charged with any crime related to that allegation.

“He just treated me like he owned me,” she told jurors this week.

Mann, 40, acknowledges that she accepted his sexual advances at times but said the two rapes happened as she protested and pleaded with him to stop.

Weinstein's lawyers maintain that everything that happened between the two was consensual and part of a supportive, caring relationship. They say Mann benefited from associating with an Oscar-winning producer, only later accusing him amid the #MeToo outcry of 2017 and 2018.

Mann and Weinstein met at a Los Angeles-area party around early 2013. At the time, she was a financially struggling hairstylist and actor aspiring to make it big in show business.

The then-married Weinstein invited her to a bookstore, where he bought her volumes about movies. Not long afterward, he took her to dinner at a hotel in Beverly Hills.

“From your perspective in 2013, going to dinner with another man who’s older than you can imply certain ideas, like a date, correct?” Geragos asked.

Mann said she hadn’t thought of it as a date. His assistant scheduled the dinner, so it seemed “somewhat professional,” she explained.

After the meal, Weinstein asked her up to his hotel suite, where Mann testified that he pressed her to take off her shirt and let him massage her. She said she instead rubbed his back to “de-escalate” the situation.

Geragos suggested Mann simply could have left the room.

On another occasion, Mann said, Weinstein pulled her into a hotel suite bedroom and made advances she initially resisted, before submitting to oral sex because he otherwise wouldn't let her leave.

Geragos noted, through questions, that although Mann said the encounter shocked and dismayed her, she didn't call out for help from a friend who she said was in the suite's sitting area throughout.

The alleged rape happened weeks later.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted, unless they agree to be named, as Mann has done.

Harvey Weinstein, center, defense attorneys Marc Agnifilo, left, and Teny Geragos, right, appear in criminal court, in New York, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, Pool)

Jessica Mann arrives for Harvey Weinstein's trial in criminal court, in New York, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan criminal court on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, in New York. (John Angelillo/Pool Photo via AP)

Jessica Mann, right, arrives for Harvey Weinstein's trial in criminal court, followed by Manhattan Assistant District Attorneys Candace White, left, and Nicole Blumberg, in New York, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)