NEW YORK _ Cocaine kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman should spend the rest of his life behind bars _ plus another 30 years, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
In a sentencing letter to Judge Brian Cogan, prosecutors portrayed the 62-year-old drug lord as a monstrous killer and said they would ask for a life sentence for him even if the mandatory minimum in the case wasn't life behind bars.
"The overwhelming evidence at trial showed that the defendant was a ruthless and bloodthirsty leader of the Sinaloa Cartel," the government wrote in a five-page letter to the judge.
"Testimony showed that the Sinaloa Cartel was one of the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, and that it was able to seize control of vast swaths of territory throughout Mexico. It did so by wielding extraordinary violence, including kidnapping, torture and murder."
Earlier this month, the judge denied Guzman's request for a new trial, saying any "rational jury" would have found him guilty based on the "mountain range of evidence" painstakingly presented by prosecutors over three months in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Guzman was responsible for pumping at least 1.2 million kilos of cocaine into the U.S., and ordered his "army of sicarios" to murder, kidnap and torture, at times getting in on the violence himself.
On Friday, prosecutors proposed that Guzman should cough up a whopping $12.7 billion for his crimes as well, suggesting that he made the staggering sum through his drug trafficking business.
He is due to be sentenced July 17.
