The Court of Appeals puts life in place for El Chapon

“I'm sure Mr. Guzman will send this case to the Supreme Court”, El Chapos defence attorney Marc Fernich said in an e-mail-disposed statement. The U.S. Attorney's Office refused to comment on the verdict.

64-year-old Guzman was sentenced in February 2019 for trafficking narcotics worth billions of dollars to the United States, as well as killing his rivals, in the role of Sinaloa Cartel's boss in Mexico. He's serving his sentence in prison “Supermax” in Colorado, also known as the most secure American Federal Prison.

Guzman's appeal focused on a news release in the Vice News media a week after the decision, where a member of the jury said at least five other members had attended media reports about El Chapon, and had lied about it before the judges. These reports charged El Chapo with drug abuse and rape of teenage girls, an act that Mexican lawyers denied, and the prosecution did not charge.

In highly sensitive matters, judges instruct jury members not to follow media reports or social networks on the issue. However, the appeals judge said none of the claims raised in the Vice News article produced evidence that the jury members had shown unilaterally towards Guzman.

As for the claim that it had entered a <x0faz window-less window” while being held in custody in Manhattan prison, the judge said that conditions, however harsh, did not meet the conditions for an unfair trial of the accused, who has a history of escape from prison in Mexico.

In addition to Guzman, American justice has sentenced his third wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, to three years in prison, after she admitted to helping run the drug empire, and has been involved in his escape from prison in July 2015 in Mexico. El Chapo was finally captured in January 2016.