THIS TIME, HE'LL GET THE 'MAX
US authorities want to make sure the third time’s the charm.
El Chapo, who has escaped Mexican prisons twice, will likely be sent to “The Alcatraz of the Rockies,’’ or ADX Florence, the United States’ only supermax prison, to do his time.
But the top-security Colorado digs will still be a relative cakewalk compared to what Joaquin “El Chapo’’ Guzman has been enduring, his lawyers say.
“Wherever he’s going is better than where he is now,’’ said Chapo lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman on Tuesday, hours after a Brooklyn federal jury found the former head of the Sinaloa drug cartel guilty on all counts at his narcotics-trafficking trial.
The 61-year-old drug lord has been in solitary confinement in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan for the past two years.
“The light is always on,’’ said another Chapo lawyer, William Purpura. “He has absolutely no view to the outside and no contact with any other inmates. He’s not getting fresh air.
“He will eventually . . . work himself into less restrictive con- ditions,” the lawyer added. “I can tell you, the location, even though it’s maximum security, he’ll have more liberty there.”
The convicted kingpin faces life in prison when sentenced June 25. The US Bureau of Prisons will decide where he’ll do his time.
Security is sure to be the top consideration for authorities, given Chapo’s slippery past.
He previously escaped from one Mexican prison hidden in a laundry cart and another through a tunnel.
But the inmates at ADX Florence — who have included everyone from 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui to “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski — might beg to differ that they have it easy.
“It ain’t no lollygagging solitary confinement like you have at some other prisons — it’s 22, 23 hours in this concrete room, then one [to two] hours in this fenced-in area,’’ although “sometimes they just canceled [the outside privilege] for no reason,’’ ex-inmate Travis Dusenbury told The Marshall Project in 2016.