Mexico's former public security chief is set to be sentenced in a U.S. court on Wednesday after being convicted of taking bribes to aid drug traffickers.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are asking a judge to order that Genaro Garcia Luna be incarcerated for life, while his lawyers say he should spend no more than 20 years behind bars.
Garcia Luna, 56, was convicted early last year of taking millions of dollars in bribes to protect the violent Sinaloa cartel that he was supposedly combating. He denied the allegations.
Prosecutors wrote that Garcia Luna's actions advanced a drug trafficking conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of thousands of American and Mexican citizens.
"It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of the defendant's crimes, the deaths and addiction he facilitated and his betrayal of the people of Mexico and the United States," prosecutors wrote. "His crimes demand justice."
