Jury selected for federal trial of “El Chapo”

NEW YORK» Jury selection at the U.S. trial for Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was completed Wednesday, with Guzman waiting for word on whether he can hug his wife for the first time in nearly two years.

A jury of seven women and five men are to hear opening statements Tuesday in the drug-conspiracy case against Guzman in federal court in Brooklyn.

Guzman has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of overseeing a drug cartel known for violence and for breaking him out of jails in Mexico.

The notoriety has prompted security measures that include keeping the jurors anonymous.

Guzman has been held in solitary confinement and is barred from seeing his wife out of concerns that he could pass messages to his cohorts.

This week, a defense lawyer asked U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan to grant a “humanitarian gesture” of letting Guzman greet his wife in the courtroom before the jury enters.

Allowing “an embrace with the railing between them would not pose a threat to security,” the letter read. The judge didn’t immediately rule on the request.

Most of the people picked either for the jury ortoserveassixalternates said in initial screening that they had heard of Guzman through news reports or TV shows. They include a man and a woman who said they are fluent in Spanish and a man who is a retired corrections officer.

The judge put off swearing in the jurors until next week out of concern that some still might try to duck duty for a trial expected to last into next year. The judge told lawyers that one of the jurors, after learning she was picked, wept while privately telling him that she was afraid of the unwanted attention she would receive if it was found out that she was on the panel.

The woman was kept on the jury after defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman argued that dismissing her would set the precedent that jurors could get out service “with a few tears.”