Lawyer for 'El Chapo' tells jurors government witnesses lied about alleged drug kingpin

A defense lawyer for Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera attacked the government for relying on a legion of cooperating witnesses who were known liars in a long shot closing argument Thursday to try to defuse 2 1/2 months of evidence against the alleged Mexican cocaine kingpin in Brooklyn federal court.

In a sarcasm-laced summation, lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman cited discrepancies between what informants told agents and what they said at trial, portraying cooperators like sibling Colombian cocaine suppliers Jorge and Alex Cifuentes as a “disgrace” that prosecutors let loose in their ardor to snare Guzmán.

“Would you let your kid be baby-sat by a Cifuentes?” he asked jurors. “Of course not. . . . Your kid would be sold for a kilo of cocaine. But you’re going to trust a Cifuentes to convict Joaquín Guzmán? It’s not right.”

The defense faced a daunting task. Long before his extradition to the United States in 2017 made worldwide publicity, Guzmán’s two escapes from Mexican prisons made him a narco-celebrity, and the government evidence included a recorded interview with Rolling Stone admitting he was a drug dealer.

At trial, prosecutors relied on 14 informants altogether — including pilots, guards, drug suppliers and distributors, and a mistress — along with tapes of intercepted calls and texts from Guzmán, to prove he led Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, using murder and payoffs to control a group that smuggled tons of drugs into the United States.

But Lichtman said the cooperators, all hoping for leniency in their own cases in return for testifying, seemed scripted to blame Guzmán whenever possible for whatever possible, randomly throwing him in every drug deal and every scenario with the blessing of prosecutors anxious to snare Guzmán.

“Lies are very cheap here,” he said. “They don’t cost nothing. Nobody cares.”

With the relish of a stand-up comedian, he attacked each one by name. Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, a Colombian drug supplier known as “Chupeta,” admitted committing 150 murders and then trying to hide his identity with plastic surgery on his jaw, cheeks, eyes, mouth, nose, lips, hair and ears.

“He changed his ears!” Lichtman said. “That’s insane! That’s how desperate he is to avoid jail. But he won’t lie to you now.”

Another, Chicago drug dealer Pedro Flores, admitted that while he and his brother became cooperating witnesses against Guzmán, their wives were making money off “Cartel Wives,” a book featuring their family’s involvement with the reputed drug lord.

“Who’s on the cover?” Lichtman said. “Mr. Guzmán! A million bucks because his wives are exploiting Mr. Guzmán. Freedom, money — boy, he can supply a lot!”

At one point he stood behind Guzmán and attempted to evoke sympathy — “He’s a human being. He has feelings, too” — as he repeatedly blamed prosecutors for remaining mute during dodgy testimony.

“Does anyone care?” he said, looking at their table. “This is still America! Does anyone care? Not a peep! Not a peep!”

The attacks were so insistent — “They lied to you over and over again and the government didn’t stop them,” Lichtman told jurors — that he eventually drew a rebuke from U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan, telling the panel there was no evidence prosecutors were trying to railroad Guzmán.

“That’s just an argument Mr. Lichtman is making here,” the judge said. “He is directed to stop it.”

Interspersed with attacks on the credibility of the witnesses, Lichtman also argued that the government was wrong in its charges that the Sinaloa cartel was an overarching conspiracy that dominated Mexican drug smuggling, saying it was instead the product of smaller ad hoc conspiracies of different individuals.

And if there was a Sinaloa cartel, he said, it was led by Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a longtime associate of Guzmán who Lichtman said bribed Mexican leaders to set up his more notorious colleague to take the heat and the fall, while Zambada remained free to continue his drug operations.

Lichtman pointed out that Zambada’s son and brother both testified against Guzmán, questioned why the government never found the vast sums of money Guzmán would have made if he headed the cartel, and even claimed Zambada arranged Guzmán’s 2015 prison escape in a tunnel to enhance his celebrity.

While Zambada sunned himself somewhere with a cigar, Guzmán was being “hunted like an animal,” Lichtman told jurors, describing his client as “the rabbit the government has been chasing to the benefit of Mayo Zambada for years.”

In rebuttal, prosecutor Amanda Liskamm told jurors that Zambada’s role was irrelevant to Guzmán’s guilt, and reminded them that the informants were all people Guzmán worked with. “We did not choose these people,” she said. “Chapo Guzmán picked these people.”

Guzmán faces a likely life prison sentence if convicted of charges of running a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy, drug distribution, money laundering and firearms violations.

Cogan gave jurors Friday off and said he expected deliberations to begin on Monday.