The Arizona official at the center of allegations of voting irregularities in Arizona’s U.S. Senate election once represented an accused ringleader of a group that was buying guns in a federal project aimed at Mexico’s drug cartels.
Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, who was elected in 2016, was an attorney who defended clients accused of firearms crimes, Fox News reported.
In 2011, Fontes represented Manuel Celis-Acosta, who was accused of shipping 2,000 weapons to the Sinaloa Cartel. Among them were guns allegedly used to kill Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in 2010.
Celis-Acosta was arrested as part of Operation Fast and Furious, a failed operation in which the U.S. government wanted to sell guns to the cartels so it could track the weapons.
Fontes also represented Emilia Palomina-Robles, who was among three people charged with trying to buy a Stinger missile and other weapons for a Mexican cartel.
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