A jury in New York returned a guilty verdict in the trial of drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera on 10 charges related to drug trafficking.
Guzmán is facing life in prison for the charges and will be sentenced on June 25. One of his attorneys says they plan to file an appeal.
The 13-week trial made headlines, including some regarding a stunning allegation of $100 million in bribes paid by El Chapo to former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, which the latter figure denies. Court documents also accused Guzmán of multiple instances of rape, of girls as young as 13, claims which the defense said were untrue.
Keegan Hamilton, who hosted the Vice podcast “El Chapo: Kingpin On Trial” and who followed the case, was in the courtroom when the jury returned the verdict.
Chapo looked a bit stunned as the verdict was read. He locked eyes with his wife Emma Coronel as he was being escorted out of the courtroom and nodded at her several times. She was fighting back tears as she flashed him a thumbs up.
— Keegan Hamilton (@keegan_hamilton) February 12, 2019
Ana Karina Zatarain grew up in Sinaola, and she thinks maybe the American public’s fascination with El Chapo is misguided.
Here she is, writing for BuzzFeed Reader:
He is revered — or at least obsessed over — on both sides of the border. In Sinaloa, Chapo merch abounds, and a march held in the state’s capital demanding his release after his apprehension in 2014 was attended by thousands. In the US, his trial has become something of a tourist attraction, drawing crowds of people to gather outside the courthouse, eagerly awaiting a glimpse of the defendant, all 5 feet 6 inches of him.
A friend who recently visited New York told me there are cartoonists in Times Square quickly drawing El Chapo’s portrait and offering it to amused passersby. Vice has produced eight episodes of a podcast — in English and Spanish — covering his trial, which you can listen to on Spotify, iTunes, or YouTube. Its host, Keegan Hamilton, has been live-tweeting the proceedings with an enthusiasm that conveys his deep fascination with not just this case, but cartel operations in general. There’s something about the language he uses that reminds me of the wide-eyed expressions of excitement in my American friends’ faces when I tell them about my hometown.
“Sometimes I feel the media has overexposed him,” Emma Coronel Aispuro, Guzmán’s wife, told Telemundo recently. “I feel people created an image of him and they want that image to remain in the public’s consciousness. It’s the image that sells.
We’ll bring you the latest, plus the view from Mexico City.
GUESTS
Ioan Grillo, Journalist based in Mexico City; author of “El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency” and “Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America”
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