‘I CAN’T SLEEP’
Ex-Chapo guy says drug big aimed to kill him
Trouble dozing off at night? Imagine this guy's life.
A former top lieutenant for Mexican druglord Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman said Wednesday he suffers from extreme anxiety and sees a therapist ever since he started cooperating with the U.S. government and joined the federal witness protection program.
“I can't sleep,” Miguel Angel Martinez testified at Guzman's drug trafficking trial in federal court in Brooklyn.
Martinez told jurors he's chronically stressed out because he believes Guzman's henchmen have tried to kill him at least four times.
He claimed he's survived three separate stabbing attacks as well as grenades lobbed at his jail cell in Mexico before his extradition to the U.S.
Speaking to jurors on his third day of testimony at the high-profile trial, Martinez recalled how the grenade attack started with a wind band playing the Mexican song “Un Puño De Tierra” just outside the prison's walls.
He said the ballad, whose title translates to “A Fistful of Dirt,” was one of Chapo's favorite songs. It urges listeners to live life to the fullest because death is inescapable.
“He really loved that song,” Martinez said. “They played it one time after another after another — they played it 20 times that night.”
About two hours after the music stopped, a man with a gun tried to break into Martinez's cell and ultimately set off the explosives right outside the door, he testified.
Martinez said he watched the assailant by using a hand mirror and survived the blast by crouching next to a toilet.
Photos entered into evidence depicted a scar running from his belly button all the way up to his breastbone, a reminder of one of the stabbings.
“Sir, when I was fighting for my extradition . . . I never mentioned Mr. Guzman then — never failed him, never stole from him, never betrayed him, I watched over his family — the only thing I received from him was four attempted attacks against me, without saying anything,” he said.
“Can you imagine how many more I'm going to receive?” he asked before an objection from the defense led to a break in testimony.
Martinez began cooperating with the government in 2001. He pleaded guilty that same year to intent to distribute drugs, money laundering and conspiracy to traffic cocaine into the U.S.
He was sentenced to more than 18 years in prison but got out after six, he said.
Martinez said he was subpoenaed to testify against Guzman under the terms of his plea deal. He would not have agreed otherwise, he said.
Martinez said after his release from prison, he and his family moved into government-sponsored housing at an unspecified location.
He said lawyer fees burned through his $3 million fortune, so he had to find a regular job after getting his new life from Uncle Sam.
At first, he received about $30,000 to stay afloat. Eventually, he found a 60-hour-aweek job with a permit under his new identity, he said.
“I have to pay my receipts, my bills, day by day,” he said. “With this (case), I don't have time to work 60 hours.”
Martinez said the government has financially assisted him over the last year and a half with about $43,000.
He is a star witness for the prosecution and has spent the past three days detailing the inner workings of Guzman's billion-dollar empire.
Martinez started with the drug baron as a pilot around 1987 but later became a top manager in the organization, he said.
He testified Tuesday that Guzman became so fabulously wealthy in the 1990s the druglord had four jets, houses at every beach resort in Mexico and a private zoo with lions and tigers he visited while riding on a personal train.
Martinez said Guzman's cartel made millions smuggling tons of cocaine into the U.S. through tunnels dug under the border and in cans that were labeled as FDAapproved pickled peppers.
The cans contained only cocaine and some loose sand to mimic loose peppers, he testified.
Under cross-examination Wednesday, Martinez admitted he now loathes his former boss.
“I started hating Mr. Guzman when he betrayed me and sent someone to try to kill me,” he said.