Lawyers for Mexican drug lord “El Chapo” whined to a Brooklyn judge Friday that their notorious client is being treated unfairly by the Federal Bureau of Prisons because he’s spending 23 hours a day in solitary confinement under heavy restrictions.
Defense attorney, Michelle Gelernt, said that the cartel kingpin, whose real name is Joaquín Guzmán, is so restricted that he’s not allowed to accept water during visits with his lawyers and paralegals – and can only exercise one hour a day.
“When we go for a visit, we are not even allowed to give Mr. Guzman water,” Gelernt told Judge Brian M. Cogan during Friday’s hearing in Brooklyn federal court.
That means “we cannot have a glass of water,” she added.
Guzmán, unshackled, stood quietly in blue prison fatigues beside Gelernt and his other defense attorney, Michael Schneider.
His beautiful wife, Emma Coronel, 27, sat in the gallery wearing skin tight jeans and platform boots alongside Guzman’s Mexican lawyer, Silvia Delgado, clad in a bright purple dress, brown fur-trimmed suede jacket and black boots.
Gelernt also told the judge that Guzmán’s family has not been allowed to call or visit him at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan.
She also said his lawyers have only been approved to see him one hour a day, which is hampering their ability to put together a strong defense.
Gelernt also groused that Bureau of Prisons officials refuse to allow anyone except Guzmán’s legal staff to be present in a room at their office during teleconferences with the narcotics trafficker from jail.
Guzmán’s family members want to confer with him about retaining private counsel, Gelernt told the judge.
But Cogan was unmoved by her arguments, saying, “Based on what I know of this case, there are grounds for taking additional security measures. I have to defer to BOP.”
Guzmán pleaded not guilty at his Jan. 20 arraignment on a 17-count indictment charging him with manufacturing and distributing heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana, as well as money laundering.
He also faces federal indictments for similar crimes in several other jurisdictions.
In their 56-page indictment, Brooklyn federal prosecutors laid out an ironclad case against Guzmán that could send him to a federal penitentiary for the rest of his life.
Prosecutors have arranged for dozens of cooperating witnesses who had face-to-face meetings with Guzmán to testify about his “power, corruption and violence” within his Sinaloa Cartel — the largest drug-trafficking network in the world, papers charge.
Colombian cartel leaders are among the witnesses who “will testify to every aspect of Guzmán’s organization from its inception in the late 1980s through his building of an international empire,” the documents state.
Prosecutors will also show that Guzmán is “extremely violent” and “maintains caches of weapons to be used for protection and to punish those who act against Guzmán’s interests,” the papers say.
Guzmán was first indicted by a Brooklyn federal grand jury in 2009.
The feds have vowed not to let Guzmán escape from an American prison as he did from two Mexican lockups.
Guzmán’s most notable Mexican prison break came in 2015, when he rode to freedom on a motorcycle through a makeshift tunnel. He was recaptured six months later.