Benjamin Cortez-Gomez says an empty pockets — and greed — drove him to promote weapons after the COVID-19 pandemic torpedoed his low-paying catering gig.
“All you concentrate on is that fast buck,” says the 32-year-old South Sider, who corresponded with the Chicago Solar-Occasions by e-mail from jail as a result of federal officers denied him permission to satisfy with a reporter.
“I’m speaking about maybe as much as $10,000 in a day,” Cortez-Gomez says. “Who else makes that sort of fast money in a few hours — apart from drug sellers?”
Federal brokers arrested him in July 2020 after he purchased seven handguns in Indiana and drove them again to Chicago to promote.
On Wednesday, he was sentenced to virtually 9 years in jail after pleading responsible to gun trafficking. He was one in all greater than 130 individuals arrested on gun fees throughout President Donald Trump’s Operation Legend, a crackdown on crime in Chicago.
Cortez-Gomez requested the choose for a five-year jail time period, which might have allowed him to stroll free with a sentence of “time served.” Prosecutors needed a sentence of greater than 11 years in jail.
Prosecutors say Cortez-Gomez was a “prolific” gun supplier who purchased firearms from Indiana suppliers he discovered on the web, together with an internet site referred to as Armslist.
He left a message on the telephone of 1 La Raza gang member from Chicago, saying, “Now, when you’ve got some shooters that may assist me get them off my arms and provides me the loot, then I can go get them handguns,” based on prosecutors.
Cortez-Gomez denies the client was a gang member.
And he says his crimes weren’t motivated by a need to assist criminals.
He says he simply badly wanted cash after dropping his job in 2020.
“I can say that my crime was extra of a fast monetary alternative quite than the rest,” he says.
Cortez-Gomez says he would go to gun reveals in Indiana and that, despite the fact that, as a felon, he’s banned from shopping for firearms, it was straightforward to get them.
“In Indiana, solely an ID or driver’s license is required to buy a firearm by way of a personal vendor,” he says.
At his sentencing, Cortez-Gomez appeared in an orange leap go well with and black-frame glasses.
Assistant U.S. Lawyer Elie Zenner informed the choose that Cortez-Gomez was an “unrepentant and prolific gun trafficker” and mentioned Chicago is “awash” in unlawful weapons from Indiana. He mentioned Cortez-Gomez knew he was promoting to gang members who would offer them to shooters.
“Unlawful weapons was a lifestyle for him,” Zenner mentioned.
Cortez-Gomez had studied regulation behind bars and represented himself for a lot of his case, however lawyer John Miraglia stepped in to talk for him at sentencing.
“The person has some real, first rate qualities,” Miraglia mentioned.
Two of Cortez-Gomez’s sisters gave testimonials on his behalf. Then, dabbing his eyes with a Kleenex, Cortez-Gomez mentioned, “I’m very remorseful.”
U.S District Choose John Blakey famous Cortez-Gomez’s makes an attempt at self-improvement in jail and his troublesome life.
“I can’t lay at your toes the whole downside of gun violence in Chicago,” Blakey mentioned.
In sentencing Cortez-Gomez, the choose mentioned he wanted to offer him a wake-up name.
“You have been undeterred by prior jail sentences,” Blakey mentioned.
In his on-line correspondence with the Solar-Occasions, Cortez-Gomez wouldn’t give particulars of his gun offers.
In keeping with courtroom information, a hid carry allow in one other man’s identify, David Saldana, was discovered within the automobile he was driving when he was arrested.
“There’s actually no how-to handbook,” Cortez-Gomez says. “It’s extra about exploring the Indiana gun present group and attending to know individuals. When you turn out to be shut and pleasant, it turns into monetary achieve, a business-making alternative, and also you turn out to be blind to the results.”
In keeping with courtroom information, Stephen King, 69, of Indianapolis, admitted shopping for weapons from official sellers and promoting them to others, together with at the very least 25 of them to Cortez-Gomez with out verifying his id.
He informed investigators he thought Cortez-Gomez’s actual identify was David Saldana.
In 2022, King was sentenced to 18 months in jail for dealing firearms with out a federal license. He bought greater than 160 weapons, prosecutors say. His lawyer informed the choose that King’s interest of shopping for and promoting weapons become an unlawful enterprise.
“You’ve bought to like this enterprise,” King as soon as mentioned when shopping for two handguns from a federally licensed supplier within the Indianapolis suburbs, based on courtroom information. “The merchandise promote themselves.”
Although prosecutors say Cortez-Gomez’s gun operating contributed to violence and bloodshed, he says: “I’m in opposition to violence in Chicago, interval.”
Earlier than getting concerned in gun operating, Cortez-Gomez says he labored in warehouses and eating places like TGI Fridays, Little Caesars and Dunkin.
“These jobs are laborious labor,” he says.
He grew up in Elgin and moved to “nitty-gritty Chicago” in his teenagers. He lived in Palmer Sq. on the Northwest Facet.
Cortez-Gomez says his father abused him and his mom. His father died of most cancers in 2007, when Cortez-Gomez was 15.
“My son didn’t have a father determine rising up in his early teenagers and was a younger boy with a misplaced thoughts with nowhere to go,” his mom mentioned in a letter final month to the choose, asking for leniency.
Cortez-Gomez says he graduated from North-Grand Excessive Faculty in Hermosa Park in 2010 and joined the Guardian Angels in the summertime of 2013, when he was 21. The Guardian Angels are unarmed volunteers who patrol CTA L trains, aiming to forestall violence.
Cortez-Gomez says they’d meet downtown and break up into teams to patrol totally different practice strains. He says, as an illustration, that he as soon as escorted a lady to her house from a practice platform at 1 a.m. as a result of she didn’t really feel secure.
“I needed to make a constructive influence in my group,” he says.
In 2016, based on Cortez-Gomez, he was hustling to turn out to be a freelancer who feeds video to information organizations. Someday, he arrived on the scene of a automobile that crashed in a police chase in Again of the Yards after a deadly gang taking pictures.
“They illegally searched my automobile, which led to the invention of my police scanner,” he says. “They weren’t completely satisfied about it.”
He was charged with possession of a police scanner, however the case was dismissed when he forfeited it.
He says his dream of turning into a contract photojournalist ended as a result of he couldn’t afford the $10,000 cameras others have been utilizing — and the competitors was too intense.
“I misplaced hope and gave that up however nonetheless listened to radio site visitors close to my home,” he says.
In 2018, he bought arrested in a carjacking case. He pleaded responsible to a cost of aggravated illegal restraint and was sentenced to 4 and a half years in jail.
However he says he wasn’t a carjacker. At his sentencing, his lawyer informed the choose he was an adjunct to the crime and bought caught with the stolen automobile however wasn’t concerned within the theft.
“There was no factual proof that I actually had dedicated that alleged carjacking,” he informed the Solar-Occasions. “A juvenile took the automobile and handed it all the way down to me. Sure, I used to be younger and silly. I remorse many issues, particularly my previous felony convictions.”
Cortez-Gomez was on parole in that case when he was arrested for gun trafficking.
That investigation stemmed from a tip from a lady who grew to become an informant for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
She was dealing with a misdemeanor youngster endangerment cost in Cook dinner County felony courtroom, however was out of jail in lieu of bail.
The girl contacted a Cook dinner County sheriff’s investigator, saying she knew somebody who was shopping for weapons in Indiana and promoting them to gang members. The investigator contacted ATF brokers who interviewed the girl on July 21, 2020, and launched the case in opposition to Cortez-Gomez.
The girl informed the brokers she and Cortez-Gomez traveled to Indianapolis each few days and purchased as many as 10 weapons on every journey.
The unique plan was for the girl to rearrange for Cortez-Gomez to promote weapons to an undercover ATF agent posing as a gang member. However that plan fell aside when he drove to Indianapolis to purchase weapons on July 27, 2020 — earlier than ATF brokers might arrange a sting.
The ATF brokers felt they wanted to maintain Cortez-Gomez from placing these weapons on the road in Chicago, in order that they arrange surveillance and adopted him from his house in Englewood.
Brokers tailed him to Interstate 65 in northwest Indiana, then parked and waited for him to return.
Hours later, a U.S. Customs and Border Safety helicopter noticed the blue Dodge Charger that Cortez-Gomez was driving. 4 unmarked ATF automobiles adopted him again to Chicago.
On the 59th Avenue exit ramp on the Dan Ryan Expressway, ATF brokers boxed within the Charger, broke the driving force’s aspect window, pulled Cortez-Gomez from the automobile and arrested him. They mentioned they discovered 5 semiautomatic handguns and two revolvers within the trunk.
ATF paid the informant $1,400, and the kid endangerment case in opposition to her was dropped, although federal authorities say that wasn’t a part of their cope with her.
Among the many key proof within the case was a collection of Snapchat messages between the informant and “Bennie Blanco,” the identify Cortez-Gomez used on his Snapchat account.
Although Cortez-Gomez pleaded responsible to the gun trafficking cost, he says the informant gave false info to the brokers concerning the type of automobile he drove and lied that she accompanied him on his gun shopping for journeys.
He additionally says the ATF brokers didn’t observe him all the way in which to the place he purchased the weapons in Indiana, in order that they didn’t see the transaction happen.
“That may be a grey space that the feds had in my investigation,” he says.
Federal authorities acknowledged that they sped up their investigation as a result of Cortez-Gomez unexpectedly determined to purchase weapons that day. Additionally they mentioned the informant’s story was mistaken in components.
Over the previous 5 years, Cortez-Gomez had repeatedly requested the courts to launch him from jail till his case was resolved, however judges denied his requests, saying he was a hazard to the group and a flight threat.
“My earlier prosecutor and lawyer are those responsible for transferring the case at a snail’s tempo,” Cortez-Gomez says. “Nothing was being filed, and all the pieces was being stalled even after post-pandemic courtroom proceedings. My private thought is that it shouldn’t have taken 5 years to resolve this plain and non-complex felony case.”
Prosecutors disagree, saying in a courtroom submitting that Cortez-Gomez “explicitly declined to invoke his proper to a speedy trial.”
Cortez-Gomez is suing the ATF brokers who arrested him, saying they didn’t have possible trigger and used extreme drive once they smashed his automobile window, inflicting a lower on his hand that required stitches to shut.
Cortez-Gomez says that, since his 2020 arrest, he’s been learning felony regulation and hopes to turn out to be a paralegal, open a authorized help workplace and assist incarcerated individuals. He says he used his authorized data in his personal protection, which the choose acknowledged.
He says he regrets his involvement in gun operating and what he describes as a poor resolution to make a fast buck throughout the pandemic.
“There are extreme penalties for the conduct I pleaded responsible to — transporting firearms from one state to a different,” Cortez-Gomez says. “In a way, I can clearly perceive why such gun crime penalties have gotten harsher within the state of Illinois. And, on account of my expertise within the federal authorized system, it’s merely not definitely worth the bother, and I’ve realized so much from it.”
