'El Chapo' loses last-ditch effort to delay Brooklyn trial
NEW YORK _ Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman got shot down Tuesday in his last-minute bid to delay his trafficking trial in Brooklyn.
The proceeding will begin as scheduled Monday with the start of jury selection, U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan ruled.
Guzman, 61, has pleaded not guilty to 17 counts of drug trafficking, murder conspiracy and money laundering.
The alleged head of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, who previously escaped two Mexican prisons, appeared in court Tuesday and peeked out from behind 23 binders full of 14,000 pages of prosecution evidence handed over to the defense on Oct. 5.
"It's important to see exactly what we're dealing with," his attorney Eduardo Balarezo said as he argued for the trial delay.
While Cogan refused to push back jury selection, he said opening statements will begin no sooner than Nov. 13, which could give the defense "extra prep days" if a panel is picked by early next week.
The judge also said he was willing to extend the trial by not hearing any testimony on Fridays, to give lawyers extra days off to prepare.
Guzman has been held in solitary confinement in New York since his extradition to the U.S. in January 2017.
"We wish (Judge Cogan) had given us more time," Balarezo said outside court after Tuesday's hearing, adding that in addition to the 23 binders in the courtroom, he has binders for another 116 potential witnesses and discovery documents exceeding 300,000 pages.
In one win for the defense, Cogan told prosecutors he did not think he would allow them to introduce their 30-plus murder conspiracies at trial.
"It is way too much," Cogan explained. "This is a drug conspiracy case that involves murder. I'm not going to let it become a murder conspiracy case that involves drugs."
The judge also ruled to close jury selection to the public and allow only five pool reporters to watch from the back row of the jury box.
_New York Daily News
