Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as "El Chapo", has filed an appeal motion before the U.S. justice system, arguing that his extradition to the United States was "illegal" and that his lawyers failed to fulfill their duty of defense. Additionally, he mentions that his defenders did not fight to exclude certain evidence from the case, which also affected his appeal. This new request is presented in a complicated legal context, as his sons, Ovidio Guzmán and Joaquín Guzmán López, are in negotiations with U.S. authorities to plead guilty and seek minimal sentences.
In July 2019, "El Chapo" was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of 10 counts related to 26 violations of the Drug Law and a homicide conspiracy in New York. The handwritten motion addressed to Judge Brian Cogan of the Eastern District Court in Brooklyn, New York, was dated September 25, 2024. In the document, Guzmán, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, asserts that he "was illegally extradited to the United States."
The leader of the Sinaloa Cartel argues that he should have been extradited to the Eastern District of Texas and the Southern District of California, adding that there was never a waiver of the specialty rule signed by a magistrate judge. Although Guzmán acknowledges that this motion had already been filed previously and is not based on "newly discovered evidence", he also argues about the "ineffective legal assistance" he received from his lawyers.
According to the document, his attorneys did not adequately examine the witnesses, leading to his guilty plea.