Drug lord ‘El Chapo’ convicted by US jury
Guzman faces possible life sentence
NEW YORK (Reuters) — The world’s most infamous cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who rose from poverty in rural Mexico to amass billions of dollars, was found guilty in a US court on Tuesday of smuggling tons of drugs to the United States over a violent, colorful, decades-long career.
Jurors in federal court in Brooklyn convicted Guzman, 61, head of the Sinaloa Cartel, on all 10 counts brought by US prosecutors.
Richard Donoghue, the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said he expected Guzman to receive life without parole when sentenced on June 25.
“It is a sentence from which there is no escape and no return,” Donoghue told reporters.
Guzman, one of the major figures in Mexican drug wars that have roiled the country since 2006, become almost legendary for escaping from Mexican high-security jails twice and avoiding massive manhunts. He cultivated a Robin Hood image among the poor in his home state of Sinaloa.
Guzman sat and showed no emotion while the verdict was read. Once the jury left the room, he and his wife Emma Coronel, put their hands to their hearts and gave each other the thumbs up sign. His wife shed tears.
Guzman, whose nickname means “Shorty,” was extradited to the US for trial in 2017 after he was arrested in Mexico the year before.
Though other high-ranking cartel figures had been extradited previously, Guzman was the first to go to trial instead of pleading guilty.
The 11-week trial, with testimony from more than 50 witnesses, offered an unprecedented look at the inner workings of the Sinaloa Cartel, named for the state in northwestern Mexico where Guzman was born in a poor mountain village.
The US government said Guzman trafficked tons of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine into the US over more than two decades, consolidating his power in Mexico through murders and wars with rival cartels.
Small in stature, Guzman’s smuggling exploits, the violence he used and the sheer size of his illicit business made Guzman the world’s most notorious drug baron since Colombia’s Pablo Escobar, who was shot dead by police in 1993.
Guzman’s lawyers say he was set up as a “fall guy” by Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a powerful drug lord from Sinaloa who remains at large.
Jeffrey Lichtman, a lawyer for Guzman, told reporters after the verdict that the defense faced an uphill fight, given the amount of evidence the government presented, and the widespread perception that Guzman was already guilty.
“This was a case that was literally an avalanche of evidence,” Lichtman said. “Of course we’re going to appeal.”
Mexico President Andres Obrador was elected last year after promising a change to the deadly military-led war against drug gangs, suggesting a negotiated peace and amnesty for non-violent drug dealers, traffickers and farmers.