(Vice)
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán successfully busted out of two Mexican prisons, once by hiding in a laundry cart and later by riding a motorcycle through a mile-long tunnel. But his attempt to escape his recent conviction in the United States has failed.
On Wednesday, Judge Brian Cogan denied the Sinaloa cartel leader’s request for a new trial. Chapo will now be sentenced on July 17 at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, where he faces a mandatory sentence of life without parole.
The 62-year-old Guzmán, whose nickname means Shorty, was convicted in February on a 10-count indictment for smuggling tons of drugs into the U.S., laundering millions of dollars, and using brutal violence to build his criminal empire. The unanimous guilty verdict came after an epic three-month trial that saw multiple high-ranking Mexican and Colombian narcos testify against their former boss and business partner. Read more