El Chapo Sentenced to Life in Prison, Ending Notorious Criminal Career

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times



Joaqun Guzmn Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, was sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison, ending one of modern history's most brutal and notorious criminal careers, the United States attorney's office in Brooklyn said.

The life sentence, mandated by law as a result of the severity of Mr. Guzmn's crimes, was handed down in the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, where the kingpin was convicted last winter of drug, murder and money laundering charges after a sprawling three-month trial.

As some of the federal agents who had chased him for years looked on from the gallery, Judge Brian M. Cogan issued the life term and Mr. Guzmn, 62, was hauled away to prepare himself -- pending an appeal -- for spending the rest of his life behind bars. He almost certainly will be sent to the country's most forbidding federal prison, the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, or ADX, in Florence, Colo.

"It's justice not only for the Mexican government, but for all of Guzmn's victims in Mexico," said Raymond P. Donovan, the agent in charge of the New York office of the Drug Enforcement Administration, which was instrumental in capturing the kingpin twice. Mr. Guzman's career atop one of Mexico's most powerful cartels came to a close only after Mexico agreed to extradite him to the United States in January 2017.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/nyregion/el-chapo-sentencing.html

[neohippie]

1. Doubt that his career will be over

Somehow I doubt prison keeps a person from running or influencing cartel activity but glad to hear this news

[ADX]

2. He's being sent to ADX Florence...

...which is basically equivalent to being buried alive. He'll be confined to an 84 square-foot cell constructed almost entirely out of concrete for no less than 23 hours a day, every day. Cells are arranged so that it's impossible to see into another cell and are secured by two doors, one barred and one made of solid steel. If he behaves himself he'll get one fifteen-minute monitored, recorded phone call per month and all mail into and out of the facility is screened and subject to edit and redaction as the prison administration sees fit and/or deems appropriate. He'll have almost no human contact except for the COs who bring him his food (all meals are eaten in the cell) or move him around the facility if/when necessary. It's an almost unthinkable existence and he'd probably have been better off if he'd gotten the death penalty.

I assure you, his career is completely, totally and irrefutably O-V-E-R, period...

[Everyman Jackal]

3. And COs can never be bought?

His is going to live in that cell until he dies but I doubt he will give up his corporation.

[ADX]

4. If he doesn't relinquish his authority over the cartel...

...it will just be taken from him because he has zero leverage to retain it. He's not going to be able to run shit from ADX and if you, he, or anyone else thinks he's going to bribe/subvert a CO there into doing his bidding, you're wrong. That place is the most draconian facility in the entire Federal penal system and it's reputation is well-deserved and well-earned. People who enter there under a life sentence are rarely if ever heard from again. Remember the Unabomber? Ramzi Yousef? Eric Rudolph? When's the last time you heard anything about them? They've all been effectively "disappeared" and the same will hold true for Guzman.

He's done.

[Applegate]

5. El Chapo may be done, but the cartels certainly aren't.

Our insatiable appetite for drugs combined with our insistence on prohibiting them ensures that the cartels will do just fine, thank you very much.

[ADX]

6. By the way...

...I always meant to tell you I love your username. Are you a Public Enemy fan by chance?

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Yup.

PE in full effect!

[ADX]

10. Armageddon has been in effect...

...go get a late pass!

With the possible exception of the Wu, PE is the best rap group of all time.


My Uzi weighs a ton...

[BumRushDaShow]

12. They certainly had the poltics down pat

as a counter to the gangsta rap.

Use to have "Rebel without a pause" as a sigline.

[ADX]

18. Great track ..."Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos"...

...I also love "Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos":

"I got a letter from the government, the other day"...

[BumRushDaShow]

19. That song is wild because

all I could envision is it made into a scene in a movie of a break-out.

[ADX]

20. That's exactly why it's such a great song...

...The lyrics paint such a vivid picture in one's mind...

[ADX]

9. He's not getting out of ADX Florence...

...until he's room temperature, in a box.

Escape just ain't gonna happen; no way, no how...

[BumRushDaShow]

11. She self-deleted just as I was replying

but there was apparently an agreement between Mexico and the U.S. in 2017 that they would extradite him here for trial only IF the U.S. agreed NOT to seek a death penalty.

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/17/742601114/el-chapo-is-sentenced-to-life-plus-30-years-in-prison-for-drug-crimes

[christx30]

14. ADX Florence is the next best thing to the death penalty. N/t

[BumRushDaShow]

15. Yeah he'll be in there with a pile of 9/11-related folks as well as Ted Kaczynski. Fun. NOT.

[christx30]

16. Between 2 and 3,000 deaths have been attributed to him,

so just about as destructive as 9/11. Just over a longer period of time. His sentence is well earned. Hopefully he’ll get a long time in there before he’s carted out in a box.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. Oh yeah

and it was made worse because he kept escaping each time he was caught and went right back to business as usual while on the lam too.

[ConstanceCee]

13. A Good Book

There's a good book (fiction) about this very thing: The Border by Don Winslow. Long, but I think worth it. (There's a section about a ten-year-old boy trying to get into the US from Guatemala that should be read by every person in this country.)

[NCjack]

21. The time for celebration is when he has been placed in his Super Max cell. nt

[clementine613]

22. Now if only we could get Trump and other Rethugs to share his cell with him...

n/t