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Former Olympic snowboarder pleads not guilty to federal drug trafficking, murder charges
A reward poster for the arrest of Ryan James Wedding is visible following a November 2025 news conference.
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Andrew Harnik
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Getty Images
)
Topline:
Ex-Olympian Ryan Wedding appeared in court Monday in Santa Ana where he pleaded not guilty to federal charges accusing him of running a billion-dollar drug trafficking ring and orchestrating multiple killings.
Why now: Wedding was taken into custody last week in Mexico City. Mexican officials say he turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy there, according to the Associated Press. But the AP also reported Wedding's lawyer said Monday that he actually did not surrender to law enforcement, but had been living in Mexico and was arrested.
The backstory: Wedding is accused of moving as much as 60 tons of cocaine between various locations in South and North America, and that he used Los Angeles as his primary point of distribution. The charges also tie him to the 2023 killing of two members of a Canadian family as retaliation for a stolen drug shipment, a 2024 killing over a drug debt and the killing of a witness in Colombia who was set to testify against him. Wedding was an Olympic snowboarder with Team Canada during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He appeared in just one event, the men's parallel giant slalom, where he finished 24th. Last March, Wedding was added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list.
What's next: Wedding's trail has tentatively been scheduled to start on March 24.
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