Chapo's lawyers present their case in half an hour

NEW YORK – The most common methods used by drug trafficker Joaquin Guzman Loera to escape Mexico's prison were escape (twice in two different prisons in his country) and avoid being caught at beginning.

But now that Chapo is on trial in Brooklyn's US court, his lawyers have been forced to defend themselves. On Tuesday, January 29th, as many suspected, it was clear that they would not introduce it.

His presentation in favor of Chapo before the jury began at 9:38 am in New York, where one of the lawyers, Jeffrey Lichtman, called an FBI agent to tell him how he had obtained evidence that did not concern him. not. Chapo affair. Lichtman then read aloud a stipulation, a document according to which his client has been in debt for several years.

Lichtman finished his presentation at 10:08 in the morning. "And then, your honor, the defense concludes," he said.

From the beginning of the proceedings before the court, it was clear that there was nothing to do in favor of Guzmán Loera, which is under investigation by the US authorities for more than ten years. The situation was even more complicated because, in 2016, he confessed to being a drug dealer in an interview for Rolling Stone magazine.

Despite this, the lawyers' presentation to the jury, which lasts only half an hour, is remarkably short compared to the lawyers who concluded their protest on Monday. For more than ten weeks, prosecutors drowned in mountains of evidence presented to the defense, accompanied by testimony from 56 people, including phone calls during which El Chapo discussed the cartel's cases. Sinaloa, as well as intercepted messages from him Emma Coronel, and with the women with whom she had business.

The problems encountered by the Guzmán Loera court started in November, when Lichtman presented his initial position. His bet was to present his client as a man that his partner in the cartel, Ismael "el Mayo" Zambada, had incriminated for years. According to Lichtman, the month of May conspired with rogue US agents and an irreparably corrupt Mexican government.

This argument presented two major problems. The first was that the judge in charge, Brian Cogan, had interrupted Lichtman in the middle of the speech, at the request of the attorney general's office, to emphasize that everything he said would then be supported by convincing evidence. The second was that this argument, true or otherwise, did not exclude the possibility that El Chapo was a drug trafficker and guilty of the various charges against him.

During the trial, Licthman and two other members of the defense team, William Purpura and A. Eduardo Balarezo, devoted their time to undermining the credibility of the fourteen witnesses (those who declared themselves in exchange for a possible reduction of their sentence). . These attempts have succeeded on some occasions and failed others. Most of the witnesses had previously been charged with various federal crimes in the United States and had generally confessed their misdeeds before the defense revealed them.

Before the trial began, Chapo's lawyers had insisted on the harsh conditions of his detention in the maximum-security wing of Manhattan federal prison. Because of his escape history, Guzmán Loera was placed in solitary confinement for several months and forbidden to be in the same room as his lawyers. The pre-trial meetings were held through a Plexiglas window, with the discomfort that entailed.

The team of lawyers has repeatedly tried to convince Justice Cogan that these conditions had violated his client's right to receive adequate legal advice, as provided for in the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution. The judge sought some improvement in the conditions of the arrest, but the lawyers did not convince him that Guzmán Loera's constitutional rights had been violated.

By mid-January, rumors that the strategy would be that the same Guzmán Loera appear at the hearing as a witness in his defense began to circulate. But after talking with his lawyers for several days on Monday, Chapo told Cogan that he had no plans to appear.

Little is known about the conversations he had with his defense team with respect to the protection of solicitor-client privilege, which governs the confidentiality of legal advice discussions. However, Purpura told Cogan that he and his lawyers explained to his client the legal dangers of the cross-examination of the trial. Guzmán Loera then decided not to testify "voluntarily and informally," said Purpura.

The cappo's lawyers will have one last chance to try to convince the jury on Thursday, January 31st, at the presentation of their recap. However, there will be restrictions on what they can say, if the prosecutor's motions are successful.

On the night of January 28, prosecutors presented a document asking Judge Cogan that the defense was not allowed to badert, as they had done in their initial statements, that Mayo Zambada had conspired with Mexican and American officials. to incriminate the chapo.

Prosecutors said the statement was strange and also cited what Cogan himself said on the second day of the trial.

"There can be two drug dealers, one corrupting the government and the other no," said the judge at the time. "That does not mean that whoever does not bribe has not committed a crime."