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A motorcade believed to be transporting Joaquin Guzman the Mexican drug lord known as "El Chapo," crosses the Brooklyn Bridge before arriving at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse, in New York, U.S., November 13, 2018. REUTERS / Mike SegarReuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The trial of criminal drug addiction. Joaquin 's "El Chapo" Guzman will begin with a comment on the subject.
Federal prosecutors say that as leader of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, Guzman, 61, directed massive shipments of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine bound for the United States. He faces 17 criminal counts and a potential life sentence if convicted.
In the United States, the Sinaloa Cartel has played a major role in narco violence between rival gangs that has torn areas of Mexico apart and defied successive governments.
More than 200,000 people have been killed – many in cartel feuds – since the Mexican government feels in the grips of the drug gang in 2006.
Guzman's lawyers have signaled that they intend to downplay their client's role in the cartel and argue that the prosecutors' are motivated by self interest and not believable.
Guzman, who twice dramatically escaped from Mexico's maximum security prisons, has been kept in solitary confinement in Manhattan and transported to court in Brooklyn in a heavily guarded motorcade.
The Judgment District Judge Brian Cogan, who is presiding over the case, last week by Guzman asking for a hug to his wife before the trial.
The jurors will remain anonymous and be escorted by U.S. marshals. Prosecutors have said the security is necessary because of Guzman's history of intimidating and even ordering murders of potential witnesses. Guzman's lawyers have called those claims unfounded.
Prosecutors also took extraordinary measures to protect their complaints.
According to short filings, those witnesses will include training Sinaloa Cartel members and others involved in the drug trade who are now cooperating with the U.S. government. None have been publicly named, and some may testify under aliases.
Guzman was one of the world's most wanted fugitives until he was captured in January 2016 in his native Sinaloa. He was extradited to the United States a year later.
In 2009, Forbes Magazine, the world's richest people, with an estimated $ 1 billion fortune but investigators say it is impossible to know exactly how much it was worth.
Guzman used his wealth to buy off politicians, police chiefs, soldiers and judges, Mexican prosecutors say. His nickname, six inch (1.67 meters) height, is still in English as "Shorty."
Several Guzman associates are known to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors, raising the possibility that they will appear on the witness stand.
They include Vicente Zambada, Sinaloa Cartel's top figure Ismael Zambada, who pledged to cooperate in a pledge agreement last week, and Chicago-born twins Pedro and Margarito Flores, one-time drug traffickers who secretly taped Guzman.
The defense will be spearheaded by Eduardo Balarezo and William Purpura, who previously defended Mexican drug lord Alfredo Beltran Leyva, and Jeffrey Lichtman, best known for securing the acquittal of mafia boss John Gotti's son.
Beltran Leyva, a former rival of Guzman, was found guilty of U.S. drug charges and sentenced to life in prison in Washington last year.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York, Editing by Noeleen Walder and Alistair Bell)
Copyright 2018 Thomson Reuters.
