A celebrity handbag designer whose products have been used by Britney Spears and on Sex And The City has been jailed for smuggling crocodile handbags into the US for fashion shows.

Nancy Gonzalez, 71, admitted recruiting couriers to carry as many as four products each on commercial flights from her native Colombia to the US for New York Fashion Week, among other high-profile events.

Gonzalez, who was arrested in 2022 in Cali, and later extradited to the US, was sentenced to 18 months in a federal court in Miami on Monday for breaking US wildlife laws.

The handbags, made from the hides of caiman and pythons bred in captivity, were worth as much as $2m (£1.6m), prosecutors said, but the designer’s lawyers said each skin cost only around $140 (£113).

Sometimes she failed to obtain the proper import permits from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, something backed by a widely ratified international treaty governing the trade in endangered and threatened species, the court heard.

Holding back tears, Gonzalez told the court before sentencing that she deeply regretted not fully complying with US laws.

She said: “From the bottom of my heart, I apologise to the United States of America. I never intended to offend a country to which I owe immense gratitude. Under pressure, I made poor decisions.”

Salma Hayek, Britney Spears and Victoria Beckham are among celebrities who bought Gonzalez’s carefully crafted handbags.

Her work was also included in a 2008 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In court, her lawyers played a 2019 video of top buyers from Bergdorf Goodman, Saks and others praising the designer’s creativity, productivity and humanity.

But prosecutor Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald said the retailers “must be regretting they were ever put up to that and if they heard it was presented in court they would cringe”.

“They have their own brand to protect,” he added.

Mr Watts-Fitzgerald, who compared Gonzalez’s behaviour to that of drug traffickers, said her activities were “all driven by the money”.

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Her lawyers pleaded for leniency for the woman, who, they said, created “the very first luxury, high-end fashion company from a third world country,” which later competed with industry giants like Dior, Prada and Gucci.

They also argued that only 1% of the merchandise she imported into the US lacked proper papers and were samples for New York Fashion Week and other events.

Prosecutors had been seeking a stiffer sentence of 30 to 37 months. But the judge said he was taking into account the nearly 14 months she spent in a Colombian prison awaiting extradition.

She was ordered to begin her sentence on 6 June.

Five people – including two children – have been found dead at a house in the US state of Oklahoma, police have said.

All five appear to have been murdered, according to police sergeant Gary Knight.

“This wasn’t a carbon monoxide situation, or anything like that – these are five people who were killed,” he added.

Mr Knight said a man and a woman were among those found dead at the home in the southwest side of Oklahoma City.

Mustang Public Schools superintendent Charles Bradley said two other victims were current students – one in sixth grade, the other in ninth – while the fifth victim was a recent graduate of the school system.

He wrote an email to families on Monday, saying the school community was “shocked, and our hearts are broken, this tragedy simply defies understanding”.

According to a report in local newspaper The Oklahoman, police said a 10-year-old had found the bodies.

The incident is being investigated as a shooting, after a gun was found on top of a man’s body, they added.

Donald Trump “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt” the 2016 election, a prosecutor has said at the start of the former president’s historic hush money trial, but the defence claims he did “nothing illegal”.

We take a look a how Trump’s hush money case – the first criminal trial against a US president – opened to 12 jurors in New York.

What did the prosecution say?

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo made the remarks as opening statements as the trial got under way – marking the first time that prosecutors have presented a criminal case against a former president to a jury.

Trump is accused of falsifying internal business records as part of an alleged scheme to bury stories that he thought might hurt his presidential campaign in 2016.

Mr Colangelo told jurors: “The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again.”

What has Trump said?

Trump said it was a “very sad day in America” as he spoke outside the New York courthouse before opening statements began.

He added that his trial was an example of “election interference”, describing it as “very unfair”.

“People understand what’s going on,” he said, describing the trial as a “witch hunt”.

What did the defence argue?

Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche said he would refer to his client as “President Trump out of respect” as he claimed his client was innocent.

“He’s in some ways larger than life. But he’s also here in this courtroom, doing what any of us would do. Defending himself.”

Mr Blanche went on to ask: “What on earth is a crime? What’s a crime, of what I just described?

“This business records violation, these 34 counts are really just 34 pieces of paper, the cheques that were generated because of invoice and records notation… none of this is a crime.

“You heard the people’s theory that Michael Cohen was trying to cover the payback to Stormy Daniels who also goes by Stephanie Clifford.

“She did sign an agreement for $130,000… President Trump did not pay Mr Cohen back $130,000. President Trump paid Michael Cohen $420,000.

“Would a frugal business man… would a man who pinches pennies… repay a $130,000 (£106,000) debt to the tune of $420,000?”

The lawyer then said: “I have a spoiler alert: there’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.”

Trump, who has secured the Republican nomination for the 2024 US presidential election, said outside court: “I’m here instead of being able to be in Pennsylvania and Georgia and lots of other places campaigning and it’s very unfair.”

The former US president said the trial was “in coordination with Washington” and “done for the purposes of hurting the opponent of the worst president in the history of our country”.

Trump will run against current US leader Joe Biden when the election takes place in November.

First of four criminal trials facing Trump

Today’s opening statements set the stage for weeks of testimony about Trump’s personal life.

A panel of New Yorkers – 12 jurors and six alternates – were sworn in on Friday after four days of jury selection, and will hear what is the first-ever criminal trial against a former US commander-in-chief.

At the heart of the allegations against Trump is a $130,000 payment made to porn actress Stormy Daniels by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, to allegedly prevent her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump from surfacing in the final days of the presidential race.

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Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of such payments in internal business documents.

Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his lawyers argue that the payments to Mr Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.

He has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

The hush money case is the first of Trump’s four indictments to reach trial.

In his comments outside the courthouse today, the former president also spoke about his New York civil fraud case as a result of which he was ordered to pay a fine of at least $453.5m (£368m).

New York attorney general Letitia James has challenged a $175m (£142m) bond provided to Trump by insurer Knight Specialty Insurance Co.

The company is trying to convince a state judge today that it is financially strong enough to issue the guarantee after Ms James questioned if the bond was backed by secure assets.

Mr Trump said: “The money was put up, it was $175m and I don’t think (Ms James) is complaining about me for the first time, she’s complaining about the company, but why would she be doing that when I put up the money?”