Trial began this week in San Diego federal court for a South Bay businesswoman accused of carrying out a fraud scheme with her brother that allegedly began just weeks after she was released early from prison when former President Donald Trump commuted her sentence from a previous fraud conviction. During opening statements Tuesday, a defense attorney mentioned Adriana Isabel Camberos’ prior conviction but did not tell the jury that she was among the 76 people granted clemency by Trump on his last day in office in January 2021. Prosecutors allege that Camberos, 53, and her brother Andres “Andy” Enrique Camberos, 45, operated a fraud scheme similar to the one that previously sent Adriana Camberos and her husband to prison.
The government alleges that the siblings conspired to “unduly enrich themselves” by purchasing wholesale groceries and other consumer goods at a steep discount on the promise that they would be marketed in Mexico, but instead turned around and sold the products in the more lucrative U.S. market, undercutting business rivals.
A defense attorney for Andy Camberos, the founder and former CEO of Grasshopper Dispensary, Chula Vista’s first legal cannabis retailer, told the jury during opening statements that prosecutors weren’t wrong, but that selling Mexico-bound products in the U.S. was a “sharp business practice” and not an illegal conspiracy.
“We agree they engaged in product diversion,” Dan Goldman said, telling jurors that the practice .