NEW YORK _ The wife of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is officially off the hook in her phone flap, but two defense lawyers are banned from bringing phones into the courthouse for an entire year.
The judge overseeing Guzman's drug trafficking trial in Brooklyn said Thursday he didn't have enough evidence to definitively conclude the Mexican drug lord and his wife Emma Coronel Aispuro were illegally texting each other on smuggled cellphones in the courthouse Nov. 19, as prosecutors alleged.
In his nine-page order, U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan declined to issue sanctions against defense lawyer Mariel Colon Miro for claims she facilitated the alleged texting _ but he had other harsh words for the attorney, her fellow defense lawyer Michael Lambert and Guzman's beauty queen wife.
He said the three failed in several statements and affidavits to fully explain to the court how and why Coronel was using cellphones in the courthouse on both Nov. 19 and Nov. 20 in violation of his prior order banning such conduct.
He specifically called out Coronel, 29, for being less than "forthcoming."
"The Court does not appreciate Mr. Lambert's and Ms. Coronel's lack of candor. They are strongly cautioned that, in the future, they must be helpful, forthcoming, and candid in the representations they make to the Court," Cogan wrote in the order.
According to the order, Coronel and her lawyers claimed she only used Lambert's cellphone in a cafeteria and possibly in the courtroom to access Google Translate. The judge said that didn't explain the security footage that caught her using a cellphone alone on the third floor on Nov. 19.
He said both Colon and Lambert failed to "clarify the circumstances of Ms. Coronel's multiple instances of using an unauthorized cellphone in the courthouse."
"For example, Ms. Colon and Mr. Lambert both refer to a situation when Mr. Lambert gave Ms. Coronel his cellphone to use Google Translate. But Ms. Colon's multiple representations indicate that this instance happened both in the courtroom and the cafeteria, and Mr. Lambert's affidavit lacks any detail that would assist the Court in gaining a firmer basis of the relevant facts," he wrote.
He then said Lambert and Colon are prohibited from carrying any cellphones, iPads or other phone-capable devices into the Brooklyn courthouse for an entire year from the date of his Thursday order.
The long-awaited ruling came after prosecutors argued Colon personally gave Coronel one of her cellphones on the third floor and then walked to the attorney conference room with another cellphone to enable Coronel to send messages to Chapo in violation of the court's ban on such communication.
"The security footage shows that, at the same time Ms. Colon was alone with defendant in the attorney conference room, Ms. Coronel was alone on the third floor of the courthouse using a cellphone. The security footage also shows that Ms. Colon and Ms. Coronel left the courthouse together soon after, but that neither of them retrieved a cellphone from the check-in point in the lobby," the judge's order explains.
Despite the circumstantial evidence of misconduct, Cogan said he "disagrees with the government's conclusion" that Colon facilitated contact between the spouses.
"The security footage is more consistent with a coincidence than with a scheme by defense counsel to violate the (security order)," he wrote.
Cogan said he needed more "definitive proof" before accusing Colon of such a flagrant violation of his orders.
He said she's the only Spanish-speaking defense lawyer able to spend ample time with Guzman in custody to help him with the language barrier.
Guzman has pleaded not guilty to a 17-count indictment filled with charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and conspiracy.
The alleged former head of Mexico's powerful Sinaloa cartel turned emotional in court Thursday when Coronel arrived for the day's testimony with the couple's 7-year-old twin daughters Emaly and Maria Joaquina, who arrived wearing matching white blazers and bows in their hair.
The accused head of the Sinaloa drug cartel waved at his daughters and tried to blow them kisses before a marshal signaled him to stop.
The little girls are due to visit with their father in custody Friday, a source told the New York Daily News on Wednesday.
They're the only family members allowed to spend time with the alleged kingpin while he's in custody in New York.
