Mexico’s once all powerful drug lord, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, is claiming he cannot get phone calls or visits in the maximum security U.S. prison where he is serving a life sentence.
El Chapo penned his complaint to District Court Judge Brian M. Cogan in the Eastern District of New York in late March, complaining that he hadn’t been able to speak with his twin daughters.
“The facility stopped giving me calls with my daughters and I haven’t had calls with them for seven months,” he wrote. “I have asked when they are going to give me a call with my daughters and the staff here told me that the FBI agent who monitors the calls does not answer, that’s all they’ve told me.
“I ask that you please authorize her to visit me and to bring my daughters to visit me, since my daughters can only visit me when they are on school break, since they are studying in Mexico,” Guzmán wrote.
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Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the head of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, being escorted to a helicopter in Mexico City following his capture in the beach resort town of Mazatlan. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)
El Chapo said that being barred from receiving outside communication was “unprecedented discrimination.”
“It is unprecedented discrimination against me,” Guzmán complained. “They have decided to punish me by not letting me talk to my daughters.”
In this Jan. 19, 2017 file photo provided by U.S. law enforcement, authorities escort Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, center, from a plane to a waiting caravan of SUVs at Long Island MacArthur Airport, in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. (U.S. law enforcement via AP)
Cogan responded last week, denying Guzmán’s request.
He said once the drug lord was convicted, all arrangements were in the U.S. Bureau of Prison’s hands.
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“Accordingly, his request must be denied,” the judge said.
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is escorted by soldiers during a presentation in Mexico City, January 8, 2016. (REUTERS/Tomas Bravo/File Photo)
Known as Mexico’s most notorious drug lord, Guzmán was convicted in New York on Feb. 12, 2019, of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation.
He was sentenced to life in prison in July 2019.
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Guzmán ran a cartel responsible for smuggling mountains of cocaine and other drugs into the United States during his 25-year reign, prosecutors said.
Under his leadership, the Sinaloa cartel, one of the world’s largest drug trafficking organizations, was responsible for multiple murders and smuggling operations in the United States.
In this undated photo provided by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, left, poses with an unidentified man. (United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York)
El Chapo also notoriously escaped from multiple Mexican prisons prior to his life sentence imprisonment at America’s most secure prison – Administrative Maximum U.S. Penitentiary, or ADX, in Florence, Colorado.
He first escaped from prison in 2001, and then spent more than a decade on the run before he was recaptured, only to escape again in 2015 via a mile-long tunnel dug into the shower in his cell.
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The Associated Press and Fox News’ Stephanie Pagones contributed to this report.
