A judge in New York City has rejected a request from Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to review the 2019 verdict that sentenced him to life in prison.
Guzman, 66, led the powerful Sinaloa cartel for decades, which is blamed for thousands of deaths in Mexico. He escaped from Mexican prisons twice and was finally captured and turned over to the United States in January 2017.
The Mexican drug lord had filed habeas corpus petitions – civil lawsuits to assess the legality of a detention – and asked for legal representation in this appeal.
But Judge Brian Cogan of the Eastern District of New York, who presided over the headline-grabbing trial in Brooklyn, denied the request.
“This was perhaps the most notorious prosecution of the decade, and the charge on which plaintiff was convicted could well have resulted in the death penalty but for the conditions of his extradition,” Cogan wrote in the decision denying the petition.
The ruling rejects arguments that Guzman's defense did not adequately investigate a settlement and cites sealed evidence that suggests Guzman still controls up to billions of dollars in assets, even if they are not in his own name.
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is seen handing himself over to US law enforcement on January 19, 2017
Guzman is seen meeting actor Sean Penn. Penn interviewed him for Rolling Stone magazine
Cogan declined the request for legal representation, saying Guzman had already received help from Mariel Colon Miro, an attorney who has represented Guzman and his wife, Emma Coronel, in recent years.
Coronel was sentenced to three years in a California prison in November 2021 for drug trafficking and money laundering.
She was released in mid-September; The 34-year-old celebrated her freedom with a party arranged by Colon Miro during a nightclub visit in Los Angeles that was shared all over social media.
Coronel, a former teenage beauty pageant queen in Mexico and mother of Guzman's twin daughters, was released under four years of court supervision.
Cogan also questioned where Guzman got the funds to pay his lawyers and why his wife – who was released from prison in September – did not have access to his assets.
Guzman is serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” where prisoners are held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.
Guzman is currently in a maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado
After escaping from Mexican prisons twice, Guzman is now in the toughest prison in America
Emma Coronel (right), the wife of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, poses with her lawyer Mariel Colón, who performed as a Mexican regional soloist at an event in Los Angeles just two days after her release from federal custody
Mariel Colón, who was part of the defense team that represented Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and his wife Emma Coronel in a separate trial, appears at a show in Los Angeles to mark Mexican Independence Day
Emma Coronel (second from right) is starting a new life after her release from federal custody. She served 31 months of the 36-month sentence imposed in November 2021 by a federal court in Washington, DC. She will be seen in LA on September 15th
After escaping twice from maximum security prisons in Mexico, including through a mile-long tunnel from his cell, Guzman was deported to the United States in 2017 and convicted of drug trafficking in 2019.
Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel remains one of the two most powerful criminal organizations in the country, alongside its main rival, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
A powerful faction within the Sinaloa Cartel is now led by Guzman's four sons, one of whom has also been extradited to the United States.
Guzman's mother, María Consuelo Loera, died on December 10 in Sinaloa at the age of 94.
In late November, the Sinaloa Cartel's security chief, one of its main killers, was arrested.
Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, better known as “El Nini,” was captured in a walled compound in Culiacán, Mexico.
He was head of security for four of Guzman's sons – Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, Joaquin Guzman Lopez and Ovidio Guzman Lopez – known as the “Chapitos.”
Ovidio was arrested in January 2023 and is currently awaiting trial in Chicago.