Jury selection begins in drug lord ‘El Chapo’ trial
NEW YORK — Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman started his trafficking trial in Brooklyn on Monday with fortresslike security, jittery jurors and multiple mentions of the actor Sean Penn.
It was the first day of jury selection in the long-awaited proceeding, with U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan quizzing the first group of prospective panelists.
“I don’t know any of your names. The lawyers who are sitting here don’t know any of your names. The defendant doesn’t know your
names,” the judge said. “No one here knows who you are. I did this out of respect for your privacy. This is a high-profile trial.”
One excused juror admitted she was skittish.
“What scares me is that him and his family will come after jurors and their families,” the middle-aged woman said, citing an article she read in a newspaper. “He has two sons and they’re conducting his business, and they’re looking (for jurors).”
A different woman told the judge she learned from news reports that Penn interviewed Guzman, now 61,
while he was a wanted man in 2015.
The woman said she also heard security was so tight leading up to the trial, authorities closed the Brooklyn Bridge when Guzman was transferred from his high-security cell in Manhattan to the federal courthouse.
Cogan asked the woman if she could set aside any curiosity about Penn’s meeting with Guzman.
“There might be nothing
about Sean Penn in this trial. Will that leave you wondering, ‘What’s this about Sean Penn?’” the judge asked.
The woman laughed and said it wouldn’t be an issue.
The judge said another prospective juror wrote in his questionnaire that he had some opinions about the justice system dating back to Michael Jackson’s California criminal case in which the “King of Pop” ultimately beat charges he molested a minor.
The man invoked Jackson’s case and also said he had an upcoming tour that might interfere with the trial.
The judge asked him to explain what the tour was.
“I’m actually an official Michael Jackson impersonator,” the man responded, eliciting some laughter.
The accused head of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel got shot down last week in his last-minute bid to delay the trial.
He has pleaded not guilty to 17 counts of drug trafficking, murder conspiracy, weapons offenses and money laundering.
In his Penn interview published in Rolling Stone magazine, Guzman boasted he was the world’s most successful drug baron.