{"id":1312522,"date":"2019-07-17T11:48:58","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T17:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=984113"},"modified":"2019-07-17T11:48:58","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T17:48:58","slug":"el-chapo-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-could-be-sent-to-colorado-supermax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/el-chapo-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-could-be-sent-to-colorado-supermax\/","title":{"rendered":"El Chapo sentenced to life in prison, could be sent to Colorado \u201cSupermax\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
FILE \u2013 In this Feb. 22, 2014, file photo, Joaquin \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzman is escorted to a helicopter in handcuffs by Mexican navy marines at a navy hanger in Mexico City. Guzman, who was convicted in Feb. 2019 on multiple conspiracy counts in an epic drug-trafficking case, will be sentenced in a New York courtroom on Wednesday, July 17, 2019.<\/strong>
Eduardo Verdugo, Associated Press file<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzman has been sentenced to life behind bars in a U.S. prison, a humbling end for a drug lord once notorious for his ability to kill, bribe or tunnel his way out of trouble.<\/p>\n

A federal judge in Brooklyn handed down the sentence Wednesday, five months after Guzman\u2019s conviction in an epic drug-trafficking case.<\/p>\n

The 62-year-old drug lord, who had been protected in Mexico by an army of gangsters and an elaborate corruption operation, was brought to the U.S. to stand trial after he twice escaped from Mexican prisons.<\/p>\n

Before he was sentenced, Guzman, complained about the conditions of his confinement and told the judge he was denied a fair trial. He said U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan failed to thoroughly investigate claims of juror misconduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy case was stained and you denied me a fair trial when the whole world was watching,\u201d Guzman said in court through an interpreter. \u201cWhen I was extradited to the United States, I expected to have a fair trial, but what happened was exactly the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n

The harsh sentence was pre-ordained. The guilty verdict in February<\/a> at Guzman\u2019s 11-week trial triggered a mandatory sentence of life without parole<\/a> .<\/p>\n

The evidence showed that under Guzman\u2019s orders, the Sinaloa cartel was responsible for smuggling mountains of cocaine and other drugs into the United States during his 25-year reign, prosecutors said in court papers re-capping the trial. They also said his \u201carmy of sicarios\u201d was under orders to kidnap, torture and murder anyone who got in his way.<\/p>\n

The defense argued he was framed by other traffickers who became government witnesses so they could get breaks in their own cases.<\/p>\n

Guzman has been largely cut off from the outside world since his extradition in 2017 and his remarks in the courtroom Wednesday could be the last time the public hears from him. Guzman thanked his family for giving him \u201cthe strength to bare this torture that I have been under for the past 30 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wary of his history of escaping from Mexican prisons, U.S. authorities have kept him in solitary confinement in an ultra-secure unit at a Manhattan jail and under close guard at his appearances at the Brooklyn courthouse where his case unfolded.<\/p>\n

Experts say he will likely wind up at the federal government\u2019s \u201cSupermax\u201d prison<\/a> in Florence, Colorado, known as the \u201cAlcatraz of the Rockies.\u201d Most inmates at Supermax are given a television, but their only actual view of the outside world is a 4-inch window. They have minimal interaction with other people and eat all their meals in their cells.<\/p>\n

While the trial was dominated by Guzman\u2019s persona as a near-mythical outlaw who carried a diamond-encrusted handgun and stayed one step ahead of the law, the jury never heard from Guzman himself, except when he told the judge he wouldn\u2019t testify.<\/p>\n

But evidence at Guzman\u2019s trial suggested his decision to stay quiet at the defense table was against his nature: Cooperating witnesses told jurors he was a fan of his own rags-to-riches narco story, always eager to find an author or screenwriter to tell it. He famously gave an interview to American actor Sean Penn while he was a fugitive, hiding in the mountains after accomplices built a long tunnel to help him escape from a Mexican prison.<\/p>\n

There also were reports Guzman was itching to testify in his own defense until his attorneys talked him out of it, making his sentencing a last chance to seize the spotlight.<\/p>\n

At the trial, Guzman\u2019s lawyers argued that he was the fall guy for other kingpins who were better at paying off top Mexican politicians and law enforcement officials to protect them while the U.S. government looked the other way.<\/p>\n

Prosecution descriptions of an empire that paid for private planes, beachfront villas and a private zoo were a fallacy, his lawyers say. And the chances the U.S. government could collect on a roughly $12.5 billion forfeiture order are zero, they add.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s case, defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said recently, was \u201call part of a show trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FILE \u2013 In this Feb. 22, 2014, file photo, Joaquin \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzman is escorted to a helicopter in handcuffs by Mexican navy marines at a navy hanger in Mexico City. Guzman, who was convicted in Feb. 2019 on multiple conspiracy counts in an epic drug-trafficking case, will be sentenced in a New York courtroom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 21:02:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}