Mexican kingpin Joaquin Archivaldo "El Chapo" Guzman Loera had his request for phone calls and visits with his young daughters denied by a federal judge, who wrote in the motion that the Bureau of Prisons is now "solely responsible" for the lonely drug lord's conditions.
"This Court has no power to alter the conditions that the Bureau of Prisons has imposed," the judge wrote in the motion filed on April 10 in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of New York. Calls and visits in effect while Guzman was on trial were superseded once he was convicted, the judge wrote. The court had previously authorized two telephone calls per month.
Guzman, once the world's most notorious cartel leader who was called by prosecutors a "ruthless and bloodthirsty leader," wrote in a March 20 letter asking the judge for visits with his wife and his two daughters. He said he hasn't had calls with his daughters for seven months and lawyers "have decided to punish me by not letting me talk to my daughters. To this day they have not told me if they will no longer give me calls with my girls," he wrote.
El Chapo, currently serving a life sentence in a Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, has requested the judge to allow his wife Emma Coronel Aispuro to visit him. Coronel, a former beauty queen and dual U.S.-Mexico citizen, was sentenced to 36 months in prison and four years of supervised release for her involvement in his multi-million dollar drug cartel.
In a letter to the judge, El Chapo expressed his desire for his wife to bring their daughters to visit him, stating that they can only visit during school breaks as they are studying in Mexico. He pleaded for the judge's intervention, citing "unprecedented discrimination against me."
El Chapo, convicted in 2019 on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering, and weapons-related offenses, has been seeking ways to improve his conditions in the isolated Supermax prison. Known as the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," the prison houses several high-profile inmates.
Last year, El Chapo sent an "SOS" through his lawyers to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, alleging psychological torment in the U.S. prison. He had previously requested permission for his wife and twin daughters to visit him when they were 9 years old.
Prosecutors have attributed numerous deaths to the actions of the Sinaloa Cartel, which El Chapo founded.
