EL CHAPO’S PLEA

Complete Letter: El Chapo writes a letter to Judge Cogan; "All I ask for is a fair trial"

By Chivis Martinez

Borderland Beat
February 15, 2018

Text of Joaquín Guzmán Loera’s statement to Judge Cogan (translated from the Spanish original):

February 15, 2018

Judge Cogan

I, Joaquin Guzman-Loera, want to explain to you the problems that I have regarding my case:

Due to the rules that you authorized, I find it impossible to mount my defense in a case that you yourself said is very complex.

Due to the rules you authorized, I have not had contact with my wife for 13 months, either in person, on the phone or by letter. It has never been explained to me why that contact is not allowed. Six month s ago I wrote her a letter and, as far as I know, she has not received the letter. Because of the impossibility of contact, she has not been able to help me get the funds to pay my lawyers.

You authorized personal visits with my sister, but after a one-hour visit, which was monitored, the united states government revoked her visa. She can no longer enter this country.

You authorized phone calls with my sister and mother but they do not have the ability to pay the lawyers. Because the rules forbid me to give them instructions on how to get funds for my lawyers, they can not resolve the problem.

I have had some visits with my little girls who are 6 years old, but obviously they can not resolve the problems. I cannot even send my family greetings with them. When I told them to say hello to their mother, the agents who monitored the visit stopped it to scold me about passing messages.

Only my current legal team can visit me, but the rules do not allow them to pass messages to my family with instructions on how to obtain the fees.

The conditions that you authorized have greatly hurt me because I cannot build my defense with the teams of lawyers that I chose.

With luck and much effort, my family was able to make the first payment to Attorney Balarezo, but because of the rules I could not get the rest. The people who helped me make that first payment cannot do more.

At this moment Attorney Balarezo is doing the best he can with what he has. But my agreement with him included more resources to be able to defend myself. Not only his fees, but also for the necessary expenses.

Because I do not have access to the necessary resources, my case is affected because I do not have the full team of lawyers that I selected. To this day, my defense is not complete due to lack of resources.

Some articles that were published last week have said that my family does not want to pay the fees in part because they do not know what I want to do. I want to make it clear - I want my family to know that I want to go to trial. I do not have any intention to cooperate or to plead guilty. I also want them to do what they can to pay the attorney fees. The problem is that without instructions from me, they cannot do it.

Judge Cogan, I ask that you please modify the rules to allow me to speak with my wife faceto-face to resolve this situation. If not, my trial will be a farce.

I also want to explain to you that the rules you authorized are affecting me physically, mentally, and emotionally.

I suffer from headaches every day.I vomit almost every day.

They have not fixed two teeth and they are very painful.

I have not seen the sun or breathed fresh air for 13 months in your country.

The air I breathe comes through a duct in my cell and it is very dry - my throat and sinuses constantly hurt.

The light in my cell is on all hours of the day and it is difficult for me to sleep.If it’s not too cold, it’s too hot.

I am not even allowed to buy the same things that other prisoners can.

Because of the conditions and how they have affected me, I cannot focus to study the evidence in my case. I can not concentrate to help my defense. It is clear that the conditions have hurt me a lot. It is torture 24 hours a day.

Judge Cogan, I ask you to please authorize some medication to help me relax and focus so I can help my defense.

Finally, the decisions you have made about the motions are based on evidence that I do not have the opportunity to refute and that is not fair. I am not going to see important evidence until very close to trial and I will not have the ability to defend myself against it.

I thought that the American justice system was at least going to give me the opportunity to defend myself. But now I see that that is not the truth. All I ask for is a fair trial.

/s Joaquín Guzmán Loera