Lawyers for Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman delivered their closing arguments Thursday in a trial that has lasted almost 40 days, with more than 50 witnesses having taken the stand for the prosecution.
Two days earlier, after the prosecution had rested its case, the focus in the New York courtroom turned to the defense team.
Remarkably, only one witness – an FBI agent –was called to testify and Guzman’s attorneys wrapped up proceedings in just 15 minutes. Guzman did not take the stand.
Apparently, defendants not calling witnesses in organized crime cases is not uncommon, Steven Boozang, the lawyer who defended a Boston mafia boss last year, told Reuters.
The defense may have assumed they already did enough to discredit the key testimony of El Chapo’s chief accountant, Jesús Reynaldo “El Rey” Zambada García, the brother of Guzman’s presumed Sinaloa Cartel partner Ismael “Mayo” Zambada. He had detailed how Guzman bought political protection from figures in various Mexican law enforcement agencies, paying millions of dollars in bribes. These allegedly included $US50 million to President Felipe Calderon’s top police officer, Genaro Garcia Luna, who has vehemently denied the accusations. (Another witness testified that Guzman also paid $US100 million to Enrique Pena Nieto, an accusation the former Mexican president fiercely denied.)
Zambada also detailed a gory list of Guzman’s atrocities, regularly ordering the murders of rivals, informants and officials unwilling to accept bribes – often with relish. At one point, a defense attorney claimed that his testimony sounded like a telenovela. “Have you ever written a soap opera?” one asked him. (Various commentators attending the trial have commented on the similarity between much of the testimony and the TV series “Narcos.”)
Guzman faces ten counts, including conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds and international distribution of cocaine, heroin and marijuana, as well as conspiracy to murder. Nonetheless, one witness described how Guzman personally tortured and killed three rival drug gang members.
Although they declined to produce any witnesses, the defense team spent four and a half hours making its closing argument on Thursday. As expected, attorney Jeffrey Lichtman branded the prosecution’s 14 “tell-tale” witnesses as “lifelong liars” working from a “script,” intent on getting lighter sentences for their crimes. He also tried to turn the jury’s attention to “Mayo” Zambada, who the defense has argued all along is the real “power” in the Sinaloa Cartel and who they say has made Guzman a “fall guy.” Lichtman warned jurors not to be fooled by the “myths” that have built up around Guzman.
In its rebuttal, the prosecution reminded jurors that Zambada is not on trial and that it is irrelevant who was actually the main leader of the cartel.
Prosecutors are confident that the sheer weight of the evidence they lined up against Guzman will result in a conviction. In particular, the testimony supplied by the Flores twins, alleged associates of the drug kingpin who admitted selling cocaine supplied by Guzman worth $US800 million in the Chicago area between 2005 and 2008, is hard to refute. After being detained by police in 2008, Pedro Flores secretly taped conversations with Guzman, in which they discussed various aspects of their business. The defense argued that, as no voice expert could verify the identity of the person purported to be Guzman, the evidence should be ignored.
If convicted, Guzman, 61, will probably spend the rest of his life behind bars in a U.S. prison.