Judge rules ‘El Chapo’ lawyer went too far

NEW YORK — A lawyer for accused cocaine kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman went too far in an opening statement that was heavy on speculation and light on proof, a Brooklyn federal judge ruled Wednesday in a sharp rebuke.

The pointed remarks from Judge Brian Cogan to defense lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman came after federal prosecutors filed a motion demanding the attorney’s entire initial address to the jury be stricken from the record. Cogan declined to go that far, but agreed the lawyer’s remarks went too far.

“Your opening statement handed out a lot of promissory notes that your case is not going to cash,” Cogan told Lichtman. “So stop.”

Lichtman’s remarks to the anonymous panel that will determine El Chapo’s fate went “far afield of direct or circumstantial proof,” the judge said. Prosecutors charged they were “permeated with improper argument, unnoticed affirmative defenses and inadmissible hearsay.”

Cogan made a point of addressing the jurors and advising them not to read anything into what sound like “outrageous” defense theories.

Lichtman, in his Tuesday opening, said Americans prosecutors dreamed “for decades” of a shot at getting Guzman in court. He also identified another reputed Mexican drug dealer as the real head of the Sinaloa Cartel, and alleged that hundreds of million of dollars in bribes were paid to Mexico’s presidents over the years.

“This is a case which will require you to open your minds to the possibility that government officials at the very highest level can be bribed, can conspire to commit horrible crimes; that American law enforcement agents can also be crooked,” Lichtman said.