Music promoter pleads guilty in two pharmaceutical drug cases in Miami
A music promoter charged with distributing millions of dollars worth of 'adulterated' psychiatric, cancer and HIV medications and laundering the profits pleaded guilty in two Miami federal cases on Tuesday.
Boris Arencibia, 51, who has been detained as a flight-risk to Cuba since his arrest last year, was convicted in one case of conspiring to traffic in medical products with false documentation between 2022 and 2023. In another case, Arencibia was also convicted of conspiring to commit money laundering stemming from a pharmaceutical drug-diversion scheme dating back a decade.
His partner in the first case, Jose Armando Rivera, 44, who has been free on bond, also pleaded guilty on Tuesday to the same false documentation charge.
Both Miami-Dade men face between three and five years at their sentencing in September before U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles.
Their plea agreements in the first scheme require them to pay $21 million to the federal government for its losses, Gayles said in court. Separately, Arencibia must pay a forfeiture judgment of $7 million in the money laundering case.
According to a charging document, Arencibia and Rivera owned part of a Texas wholesale distributor, Eclipse Meds, LLC. They bought pharmaceutical drugs from people in Puerto Rico and the United States and used Eclipse Meds to distribute them to pharmacies in Miami-Dade and other parts of the country. The pharmacies, in turn, sold them to patients with private or government insurance plans, such as Medicare for senior citizens.
To make the wholesale network look legitimate, they forged documents saying the adulterated pharmaceutical drugs came from licensed suppliers, according to federal prosecutors.
Arencibia and Rivera, represented by defense attorneys Frank Quintero and Michael Band, agreed to the plea agreements with prosecutors Frank Tamen and Jacqueline Zee DerOvanesian, to avoid potentially higher prison sentences.
'Based on the facts that Mr. Arencibia has been held without bond since January 2024 and that he is not cooperating, we felt that it was in his best interest to resolve both cases if we could negotiate favorable agreements in both cases,' Quintero said in a statement. 'We accomplished that. However, the ultimate sentence in both cases will be up to the Judge.'
Of the two defendants, Arencibia stands out for his controversial history as a music promoter.
Until his arrest at his Kendall home in January of last year, Arencibia worked as the owner and president of South Florida-based Caribe Promotions. He represented musicians and boxers, including Cuban professional boxer Guillermo Rigondeaux.
The promoter caught the ire of Miami's Cuban community after acknowledging that he was an organizer of the Santa María Music Fest in August 2023, which was deemed controversial by some due to its financial links to the Cuban military. A social media influencer from Kentucky got into a fight with Arencibia over the concert, but no one was charged..
In February of last year, a magistrate judge rejected Arencibia's bid for a bond and ordered that he be held at a federal lock-after finding he might flee to his native Cuba because of his contacts from the Santa María festival.
The latest criminal case wasn't the first time Arencibia caught the attention of federal prosecutors.
In 2000, Arencibia was accused of possessing equipment that could create fraudulent credit cards, according to Miami federal court records. He took a plea deal and was sentenced to six months in federal prison followed by three years of probation. Arencibia's permanent residency status in the United States was subsequently revoked.
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Anish Saraiya, director of Altadena's recovery for Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger's office, said in late May that the supervisor's goal is to give people options — though, he noted, the use of earthen materials so far had not been discussed in a substantive way. 'People who choose to utilize standard wood frame construction, fantastic. If you want to do modular, great,' he said. As for earthen materials, 'I think [Barger] would definitely support efforts to try to bring optionality to this community that's trying to rebuild and rebuild with an eye to resilience.' He said Barger was open to revisiting best practices, but deferred to the Public Works and Fire departments as the leading experts on fire resilience and home hardening. Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, whose district includes coastal communities impacted by the Palisades fire, convened a blue ribbon commission to provide recommendations on how to rebuild with challenges posed by climate change in mind. Among the actions the commission calls for in a report released June 20 is the creation of a new local authority to oversee the rebuilding of fire-destroyed neighborhoods. 'I am open to all proposals that help fire-impacted communities rebuild quickly, safely and resiliently,' Horvath said in a statement. 'Earthen materials and other innovative, fire-resistant approaches may offer promising paths toward sustainability and long-term resilience.' Horvath and Barger in January co-authored a successful motion calling for the creation of a rebuilding resource guide with a focus on resiliency, which touts the fire-resistant benefits of using certain natural materials for siding and insulation. County officials have urged residents interested in using earthen or other natural materials to go to the one-stop permitting centers it has opened in the aftermath of the fires, or reach out to the Public Works Department directly for assistance. But the underlying process for reviewing and approving rebuilds using alternative materials has not changed following the fires. What residents who want to rebuild with materials like adobe are left with is, largely, confusion. On a warm day in late May, Marialyce Pedersen — a sustainable materials management professional who has been advocating for building with nature-based materials for more than two decades — was trying to decide on what would eventually rise from the rubble of what was once her three-bedroom, nearly century-old home in Altadena. Pedersen broke down her options while sitting on a pinkish firepit and curved bench made from cob. The firepit that incorporated clay dug from the Altadena foothills and straw from a local feed store is one of the few elements of the home that survived the Eaton blaze. Pedersen had connected with Loescher, the architect, and was getting fired up about the possibility of rebuilding with adobe. Then he conveyed the not-so-promising signals he got from L.A. County. 'I was like, 'OK, I want to do something pioneering and innovative and amazing, but I also really do need to rebuild my house.'' Pedersen said, 'And I can't be messing around with something.' She changed course and will now be going with a construction method known as straw bale, which typically entails stacking bales of straw to form walls that are coated with plaster. When densely packed, straw has proven resistant to flames — depriving fire of oxygen needed to thrive. Some liken it to a thick phone book. Unlike materials like cob, straw bale is adopted in the California residential building code. That means using it doesn't trigger the need for the alternative approval process. Dente's Verdant Structural Engineers was involved with getting straw bale approved as a building material and — along with advocates like Loescher — is pushing for the adoption of more nature-based materials into the code. The issue is urgency. Dente believes a fully updated code is likely 20 years — and millions of dollars in materials testing — away. 'Which we are doing and don't want to shy away from, but we're in a climate crisis right now,' he said. Bumps in the road have already emerged. California earlier this year rejected citizen-led proposals to adopt cob, hemp-lime and light straw clay in its code, and recently rejected a petition to reconsider. That's why he and Loescher are focused on navigating Los Angeles County's process for considering alternative materials. If they crack it, it could offer a pathway now. Ben Stapleton — an appointee on Horvath's blue ribbon commission and executive director of U.S. Green Building Council California, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable building practices — pointed to a statistic that buildings represent nearly 40% of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Earthen and other natural materials emit relatively less greenhouse gases over their lifecycle, from extraction and transportation to assembly and disposal. Some, such as hempcrete — made by mixing the inner woody core of the hemp plant and a lime-based binder — are carbon sinks. They improve a home's insulation and energy efficiency, he added. Still, the commission did not recommend widespread use of the materials in post-fire rebuilding. 'There's a lot of strong arguments for using these materials,' Stapleton said. 'I just don't think the market is ready to deliver homes [constructed with these materials] at scale, especially in a situation like this.' He believes there first needs to be increased education among architects, engineers and permitting officials about them. The relative lack of familiarity with the materials could add challenges or slow down the rebuilding process, he suggested — which would be problematic given the urgency and dramatic scope of the effort. Karen Bagnard's late-1940s stucco home was incinerated — along with a lifetime of artwork she created, which featured mermaids and other fantastical beings — by the Eaton fire. Her two daughters, who are leading the rebuild, initially seemed firm in their preference for a home made of conventional materials. Bagnard, 80, wasn't convinced. Natural building seemed wise to her. Shrinking one's carbon footprint made sense. And then there were the potential ills of a conventional approach, like fumes spewed by laminate flooring. But she figured her daughters (and grandson) would live in the home for longer than her. She was torn but inclined to follow their wishes. Last Sunday, though, the family took a second tour of an adobe home in South Pasadena. It appeared to sway Bagnard's kids' hearts. On Monday, Bagnard emailed to say it looked like her family would be moving forward with adobe after all.
