U.S. judge orders to have “El Chapo” lawyers investigated

A U.S. federal judge accepted Robert Capers and Arthur Wyatt’s request to have any foreigners that participate in the defense of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera investigated by U.S. authorities so as to prevent access to confidential evidence, should they be part of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Both attorneys assured that “if a lawyer or foreign investigator in this case happened to be a member of the Sinaloa Cartel he would be able to have access to classified evidence and travel outside the U.S. with this knowledge.”

“For instance, if a member of the Sinaloa cartel had access to the identity of a protected witness from Mexico he could make that identity known to other members of the Sinaloa cartel and be able to have the witness’ family kidnapped or killed.”, they added.

Federal Brooklyn judge, Brain Cogan considered it to be a “significant” risk given Guzmán’s track record of hiring experts to expand his drug-trafficking business as detailed in the seven-page legal opinion that was made public earlier today.

For their part, Michael Schneider and Michelle Gelernt, duty counsels for Guzmán criticized the measure and considered it a “prohibition” for foreigners to participate in the defense team.

Guzmán is accused of leading a drug-trafficking empire full of corruption and brutality and was extradited to the U.S. on January 19 and is expected to appear in court on May this year.