New York Daily News

Hey, Chapo, you’ll stay in that cell

- Andrew Keshner

EL CHAPO WILL still get a fair trial if he chats with the lawyers from behind a sheet of Plexiglas, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan said some alteration­s to the cozy confines of two prison visiting rooms means Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman doesn’t have to be in the same room as his defense team.

Cogan said the lawyers can share documents with the accused druglord though a paper slot and on an extra computer monitor at the Metropolit­an Correction­al Center.

Prosecutor­s say the man who escaped twice from Mexican prisons couldn’t be trusted to be in the attorney visiting room. Exposed wires and pipes in the room offered ways that Guzman — who has been kept in solitary confinemen­t — could spark chaos and go for a third escape, they said.

Adding enough security so Guzman, 60, could shake hands with his defense team could have taken years and cost up to $150,000, a report concluded.

Guzman’s drug traffickin­g trial is scheduled for April.

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