‘El Chapo’ found guilty, faces life in prison
NEW YORK >> The Mexican crime lord known as “El Chapo” was convicted Tuesday after a three-month drug trial in New York City that exposed the inner workings of his sprawling cartel, which over decades shipped tons of drugs into the United States and plagued Mexico with relentless bloodshed and corruption.
The guilty verdict against the kingpin, whose real name is Joaquín Guzmán Loera, ended the career of a legendary outlaw who also served as a dark folk hero in Mexico, notorious for his innovative smuggling tactics, his violence against competitors, his storied prison breaks and his nearly unstoppable ability to evade the Mexican authorities.
As Judge Brian M. Cogan read the jury’s charge sheet in open court — 10 straight guilty verdicts on all 10 counts of the indictment — Guzmán sat listening to a translator, looking stunned. When the reading of the verdict was complete, Guzmán leaned back to glance at his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, who flashed him a thumbsup with tears in her eyes.
The jury’s decision came more than a week after the panel started deliberations at the trial in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn where prosecutors presented a mountain of evidence against the cartel leader, including testimony from 56 witnesses, 14 of whom once worked with Guzmán. Guzmán now faces life in prison at his sentencing hearing, scheduled for June 25.
Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, Richard P. Donoghue, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, called the guilty verdict a victory for law enforcement; for Mexico, where 100,000 people had died because of drug violence; and for families who had lost someone to the “black hole of addiction.”
“There are those who say the war on drugs is not worth fighting,” Donoghue added. “Those people are wrong.”
In their own news conference, Guzmán’s lawyers promised an appeal, saying they would focus on the extradition process that brought the kingpin to New York City for trial and on the prosecution’s efforts to restrict their cross-examinations of witnesses. They
said that Guzmán had expected the guilty verdict and was prepared for it.
“I’ve never faced a case with so many cooperating witnesses and so much evidence,” Jeffrey Lichtman, one of Guzmán’s attorneys, said. “We did all we could as defense lawyers.”
A. Eduardo Balarezo, another one of Guzmán’s attorneys, added about his client: “When he came here
he was already presumed guilty by everyone, unfortunately. We weren’t just fighting evidence, we were fighting perception.”
Not long after the jury got the case Feb. 4, Matthew Whitaker, the acting U.S. attorney general, stepped into the courtroom and shook hands with each of the trial prosecutors, wishing them good luck. During the next several days, the
jurors, appearing to scrutinize the government’s evidence, asked to be given thousands of pages of testimony, including — in an unusual move — the full testimonies of six different prosecution witnesses.
Guzmán’s trial, which took place under intense media scrutiny and tight security from bomb-sniffing dogs, police snipers and federal marshals with radiation sensors, was the first time a U.S. jury heard details about the financing, logistics and bloody history of one of the drug cartels that have long pumped huge amounts of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and synthetic drugs like fentanyl into the United States, earning traffickers billions of dollars.
But despite extensive testimony about private jets filled with cash, bodies burned in bonfires and shocking evidence that Guzmán and his men often drugged and raped young girls, the case also revealed the operatic, even absurd, nature of cartel culture. It featured accounts of traffickers taking target practice with a bazooka, a mariachi playing all night outside a jail cell and a murder plot involving a cyanidelaced arepa.
At times, the trial was so bizarre it felt like a drugworld telenovela unfolding live in the courtroom. Last month, one of Guzmán’s mistresses tearfully proclaimed her love for him even as she testified against him. The following day, in what seemed like a coordinated show of solidarity, the kingpin and his wife appeared in court in matching red velvet smoking jackets.