Mystery surrounds ‘El Chapo’ letters sent to federal court in Brooklyn

Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the boss of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, ran a multinational drug trafficking enterprise despite being functionally illiterate and having dropped out of school in the third grade.

Evidence presented at El Chapo’s 2019 trial, which resulted in his conviction and sentence of life in a US prison without parole, showed that he had a tendency to scribble messages in broken Spanish to his subordinates.

So when a series of letters handwritten in English and purportedly signed by El Chapo began arriving in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, they posed a mystery. Did El Chapo really write these? If not, who was writing on his behalf?

More than 20 letters attributed to El Chapo reached the court; the first was dated April 10 and the latest was published in the Eastern District of New York docket on Tuesday.

They have repeatedly complained that El Chapo’s trial was unfair and demanded that he be extradited to Mexico.

“I didn’t hurt anyone,” one person said on April 25. “I am known in my country for the good things I have done, not the bad things I have done.”

The letters sparked ridicule and outrage online; Mexican citizens were outraged at the notorious drug lord, who had twice escaped from prison in his home country and apparently had the audacity to think he could be released.

Others wondered whether El Chapo was somehow learning English behind bars, or perhaps using public court files to send coded messages that would allow him to continue making decisions on behalf of his cartel.

The messages carry the return address of ADX Florence, a maximum-security federal prison in Colorado where the one-time ringleader is held in strict isolation. But his lawyers point out that the envelopes were postmarked in Jackson, Miss., not Colorado.

“They are not him,” Mariel Colón Miró, a member of El Chapo’s defense team, told The Times. “We have an investigation into who sent them.”

Colón Miró emphasized that he and other lawyers representing El Chapo played no role in sending the messages.

“This is a crazy person,” he said.

A U.S. law enforcement source familiar with El Chapo’s case but not authorized to speak publicly described the letters as “complete nonsense.”

“It’s not that,” the source said. “He’s probably mentally ill.”

Although often rambling and incoherent, the letters consumed the court’s time. Judge Brian Cogan, who presided over El Chapo’s trial, responded to the first five letters that reached the court on May 4 with the decision to reject their requests.

“Some of these documents make no sense and none of them have any legal value,” the judge wrote.

Letters still keep coming. One this month offered a clue and, like the others, contained random underlined words.

The letter, postmarked on June 10, read: “Letters sent accepted to courts Mine legal petition related to Aubrey Gideon in Greenwood, 38930 AD his rights And connection my lawyer is with me fight for me freedom “in the USA”

Public records show Aubrey Gideon lived in the town of Greenwood and was convicted of cocaine possession in 2009. Messages sent to email addresses associated with Gideon went unanswered, and several phone numbers listed for him were out of service.

In December 2022, Gideon sent a letter to the Mississippi Supreme Court stating that his visit to the post office in Greenwood had been “suspended” due to some sort of incident. Gideon asked the state’s supreme court to intervene on his behalf.

The Mississippi letter refers to local judge Carlos Palmer, who told The Times he couldn’t remember what prompted Gideon’s letter. Palmer said Gideon was a fixture on the streets of their town.

“Mr. Gideon walks around downtown Greenwood every day,” Palmer said. “I don’t know what their situation is. He’s been in court several times for various situations.”

It is unlikely that El Chapo would be able to communicate with Gideon or anyone other than his lawyers and two teenage daughters, who are the only people approved to visit and speak to him under restrictions known as Special Administrative Measures.

In July 2024, El Chapo filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court for the District of Colorado seeking to lift the measures and improve quarantine conditions.

“On a typical day, El Chapo does not have contact with a single human being who shares a language with which he can communicate,” a court filing stated.

El Chapo said he was not getting enough sleep and suffered “almost constant severe sinus, ear, nose and throat pain” due to the hot air frequently pumped into his cell.

“I suffer from severe insomnia from being woken up repeatedly throughout the night by this hot weather every night,” he wrote.

He also told the court he did not receive any counseling in prison. “I have no one to help me deal with the effects and trauma of isolation,” she wrote.

A judge dismissed the case on June 9.

David Lane, a pro bono lawyer appointed by the court to represent El Chapo in the case, said they plan to file a new complaint on his behalf. Lane said extreme isolation is unconstitutional and violates the 8th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

“He hasn’t seen real sunlight or felt the sun on his skin in years,” Lane said. “He exercises outside in a cage, but in the shade.”

For a time, El Chapo was able to communicate with an inmate in a neighboring cell by shouting through the walls, according to Lane and court records in the Eastern District of New York.

The inmate, identified in court filings as James “Jimmy” Sabatino, a reputed Gambino crime family associate who was sentenced to prison in 2017 for stealing millions worth of jewelry through an elaborate scam, also wrote a letter in Brooklyn federal court in November of last year.

Sabatino described how he and El Chapo were kept side by side in a highly secure section of ADX that he called “The Suites.”

Sabatino wrote that even though she spoke little Spanish and El Chapo spoke almost no English, they were able to form a friendship. Sabatino said he saw the convicted drug lord’s “sensitive side” emerge in difficult moments, such as the death of El Chapo’s mother in 2023.

“I saw his mental health deteriorate rapidly. [and it] “It’s gotten to the point where I fear for him,” Sabatino wrote. “He’s having trouble communicating and expressing his thoughts coherently.”

In January, Sabatino sent a letter to the court asking to withdraw his request to be granted “next friend” status.

The two men were separated by prison officials and could no longer communicate with each other, Lane said.

Meanwhile, El Chapo’s other supporter, who wrote a letter, did not give up pressure on the court to send him home. The last message referred to the Mexican president and stated that the detained cartel leader “did not attempt to escape in any way.” USA”

“Claudia Sheinbaum there is one safe place for me imprisonment,he said.