New York (CNN) Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzm á n Loera, who once headed a criminal enterprise that spanned continents and triggered waves of bloodshed throughout his native Mexico, was found guilty Tuesday of all 10 federal criminal counts against him.

The vast Brooklyn, New York, courtroom fell silent as the verdict was read. Jurors did not look at the defendant, who pocketed nearly $14 billion as the decadeslong head of the murderous Sinaloa cartel.

There was no visible reaction from Guzmán, whose conviction on the top charge of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise carries a mandatory term of life in prison. He will be sentenced on June 25.

"It is a sentence of which there is no escape and no return, " US Attorney for the Eastern District Richard Donoghue said.

US District Judge Brian Cogan confirmed the verdicts with each of the eight women and four men on the jury, telling them later their conduct on the panel "made me very proud to be an American."

One of Guzmán's lawyers described him as "extremely upbeat" after the verdict.

"He's a fighter," defense attorney Michael Lambert said. "He's not done yet by far."

After jurors left the room, Guzmán waved and smiled at his wife, Emma Coronel, a former beauty queen and courtroom regular who smiled back and touched her hand to her heart.

"Good, thank you," she said in Spanish when asked how she felt after the verdict.

The partially sequestered and anonymous jury deliberated roughly 34 hours over six days.

Over 2½ months, they sat through testimony about unspeakable torture and ghastly murders, epic corruption at nearly every level of Mexico's government, narco-mistresses and naked subterranean escapes, gold-plated AK-47s and monogrammed, diamond-encrusted pistols.

"We are obviously disappointed with the jury's verdict in the trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera but are respectful of the process and the jury's decision," defense attorney Eduardo Balarezo said. "We were faced with extraordinary and unprecedented obstacles in defending Joaquín. ..."

Another member of the defense team, Jeffrey Lichtman, said they waged a vigorous defense against an "avalanche" of evidence and cooperating witnesses. They plan to file an appeal on a number of issues.

"He was bringing our spirits up, which was surprising. Usually it's the other way around," Lichtman said of his client after the verdict. "He's always been a gentleman, always been supportive, always been happy and appreciative of all our efforts."

Donoghue said the case represented a victory for the American people, for Mexicans who had lost loved ones in drug wars, and for every family who has lost someone to drug addiction.

"There are those who say the war on drugs is not worth fighting. Those people are wrong," he said.

The case, Donoghue said, pulled back the curtain on international drug trafficking in a way no trial ever has, revealing the endemic corruption that allowed the Sinaloa cartel to operate.

"This is a day of reckoning, but there are more days of reckoning to come," he said.

Gold-plated AK-47s and diamond-encrusted pistols

Guzmán, 61, was convicted of 10 counts, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs, and use of firearms.

He faces a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for leading a continuing criminal enterprise, and a sentence of up to life imprisonment on the remaining drug counts.

Federal prosecutors said they will seek a forfeiture judgment for billions of dollars constituting the cartel's illegal drug-trafficking proceeds.

The prosecution's case featured 200 hours of testimony from 56 witnesses. Fourteen of those witnesses -- mostly admitted drug traffickers and cartel associates -- cooperated with prosecutors in hopes of reducing their own prison sentences.

There were also surveillance photos, intercepted phone calls and text messages involving Guzmán, as well as exhibits of blingy firepower and bricks of cocaine that dropped with the force of potato sacks.

In contrast, defense attorneys called just one witness and focused on undermining the credibility of cooperating witnesses. Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said these witnesses had "lied every day of their lives -- their miserable, selfish lives."

Guzmán, once listed on Forbes' Billionaires List, has long been a slippery and near-mythical figure. He escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001 in a laundry cart and again in 2015 through a tunnel. After he was recaptured in 2016, he was extradited to the US to face American federal charges.

The high-profile trial centered on the struggles and actions of El Chapo, who came from humble origins in the heart of Mexico's rugged three-state Golden Triangle to become its most infamous native son.

The 12-week proceedings were conducted in part during the partial government shutdown over funding for a border wall. It showed that such fortification would have failed to stop tons of drugs the cartel moved from Mexico to the United States via fishing boats, trains, tractor-trailers, radar-evading airplanes, passenger cars at legal ports of entry, submarines, oil tankers, cocaine-laden cans of jalapeños and cross-border tunnels.

It included stunning testimony of corruption at nearly every echelon of Mexico's government, from police and military commanders to local and state officials to former presidents who vehemently denied the allegations.

The courtroom drama drew celebrities and so-called narco-tourists attracted to the Latin American soap opera atmosphere of the proceedings. Guzmán appeared in a suit and tie each morning, delivering a wave and smile to Coronel in the second row.

Under El Chapo, the Sinaloa cartel smuggled narcotics to wholesale distributors in Arizona, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York.

About noon Tuesday, the court learned there was a verdict.

Some court-watchers had suggested the longer jurors considered the case, the better the chances they would acquit Guzmán or hang on any of the 10 counts. Others said jurors seemed simply to be doing their due diligence, sifting through hundreds of hours of testimony.

Still, Guzmán's plainclothes visits to the courthouse and his interactions, however minimal, with his allies had lightened his mood these last months, defense attorney Michael Lambert said. It was in sharp contrast with solitary confinement, with little to no human interaction for as many as 23 hours a day.

"Once the trial started, he seemed a little happier, a little more engaged," he said. "Just sitting there in a suit without handcuffs on is a privilege in itself. It makes him feel human."</s>A federal jury in New York has found Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera guilty of all 10 criminal counts against him, including the top charge of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

The jury of eight women and four men deliberated roughly 34 hours over 6 days.

Jurors have reached a verdict in the case of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Mexican druglord accused of carrying out a sprawling criminal enterprise as chief of the Sinaloa cartel.

The jury deliberated more than 30 hours over six days.

Guzmán, 61, faces 10 counts, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs, and use of firearms. He has pleaded not guilty and could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

Over the course of two and a half months, a jury of eight women and four men in Brooklyn federal court heard testimony about unspeakable torture and ghastly murders, epic corruption at nearly every level of Mexico’s government, narco-mistresses and naked subterranean escapes, gold-plated AK-47s and monogrammed, diamond-encrusted pistols.

The prosecution’s case featured 200 hours of testimony from 56 witnesses. Fourteen of those witnesses — mostly admitted drug traffickers and cartel associates — were cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of reducing their own prison sentences.

There were also surveillance photos, intercepted phone calls and text messages involving Guzmán, as well as exhibits of blingy firepower and bricks of cocaine that dropped with the force of potato sacks.

In contrast, defense attorneys called just one witness and focused on undermining the credibility of cooperating witnesses. Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said these witnesses had “lied every day of their lives — their miserable, selfish lives.”

Guzmán, once listed on Forbes’ Billionaires List, has long been a slippery and near-mythical figure. He escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001 in a laundry cart and again in 2015 through a tunnel. After he was recaptured in 2016, he was extradited to the US to face American federal charges.</s>Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord who pocketed nearly $14 billion as the decadeslong head of the murderous Sinaloa cartel, was found guilty Tuesday of all 10 federal criminal counts against him, including the top charge of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.

There was no visible reaction from Guzmán, who faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison. After the jury left, he waved and smiled at his wife, Emma Coronel, a courtroom regular who smiled back and touched her hand to her heart.

“Good, thank you,” she said when asked how she felt after the verdict.

The jury of eight women and four men deliberated roughly 34 hours over six days.

“We are obviously disappointed with the jury’s verdict in the trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera but are respectful of the process and the jury’s decision,” defense attorney Eduardo Balarezo said. “We were faced with extraordinary and unprecedented obstacles in defending Joaquín …”

Guzmán, 61, faced 10 counts, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs, and use of firearms.

Over two and a half months, the jury in federal court in Brooklyn heard testimony about unspeakable torture and ghastly murders, epic corruption at nearly every level of Mexico’s government, narco-mistresses and naked subterranean escapes, gold-plated AK-47s and monogrammed, diamond-encrusted pistols.

The prosecution’s case featured 200 hours of testimony from 56 witnesses. Fourteen of those witnesses — mostly admitted drug traffickers and cartel associates — cooperated with prosecutors in hopes of reducing their own prison sentences.

There were also surveillance photos, intercepted phone calls and text messages involving Guzmán, as well as exhibits of blingy firepower and bricks of cocaine that dropped with the force of potato sacks.

In contrast, defense attorneys called just one witness and focused on undermining the credibility of cooperating witnesses. Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said these witnesses had “lied every day of their lives — their miserable, selfish lives.”

Guzmán, once listed on Forbes’ Billionaires List, has long been a slippery and near-mythical figure. He escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001 in a laundry cart and again in 2015 through a tunnel. After he was recaptured in 2016, he was extradited to the US to face American federal charges.</s>NEW YORK — Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord who pocketed nearly $14 billion as the decadeslong head of the murderous Sinaloa cartel, was found guilty Tuesday of all 10 federal criminal counts against him, including the top charge of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.

The vast Brooklyn courtroom fell silent as the verdict was read. There was no visible reaction from Guzmán, who faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison. He's due to be sentenced June 25.

US District Judge Brian Cogan confirmed the verdicts with each of the eight women and four men on the jury, telling them later their conduct on the panel "made me very proud to be an American."

After the jury left the room, Guzman waved and smiled at his wife, Emma Coronel, a former beauty queen and courtroom regular who smiled back and touched her hand to her heart.

"Good, thank you," she said when asked how she felt after the verdict.

The partially sequestered and anonymous jury deliberated roughly 34 hours over six days.

"We are obviously disappointed with the jury's verdict in the trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera but are respectful of the process and the jury's decision," defense attorney Eduardo Balarezo said. "We were faced with extraordinary and unprecedented obstacles in defending Joaquín ..."

US Attorney for Eastern District of New York Richard Donoghue said the case represented a victory for the American people, for Mexican people who had lost loved ones in drug wars, and for every family who has lost someone to drug addiction.

"There are those who say the war on drugs is not worth fighting. Those people are wrong," he said.

The case, Donoghue said, pulled back the curtain on international drug trafficking in a way no trial ever has, revealing the endemic corruption that allowed the Sinaloa cartel to operate.

"This is a day of reckoning, but there are more days of reckoning to come," he said.

Guzmán, 61, faced 10 counts, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs, and use of firearms.

Over two and a half months, the jury heard testimony about unspeakable torture and ghastly murders, epic corruption at nearly every level of Mexico's government, narco-mistresses and naked subterranean escapes, gold-plated AK-47s and monogrammed, diamond-encrusted pistols.

The prosecution's case featured 200 hours of testimony from 56 witnesses. Fourteen of those witnesses -- mostly admitted drug traffickers and cartel associates -- cooperated with prosecutors in hopes of reducing their own prison sentences.

There were also surveillance photos, intercepted phone calls and text messages involving Guzmán, as well as exhibits of blingy firepower and bricks of cocaine that dropped with the force of potato sacks.

In contrast, defense attorneys called just one witness and focused on undermining the credibility of cooperating witnesses. Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said these witnesses had "lied every day of their lives -- their miserable, selfish lives."

Guzmán, once listed on Forbes' Billionaires List, has long been a slippery and near-mythical figure. He escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001 in a laundry cart and again in 2015 through a tunnel. After he was recaptured in 2016, he was extradited to the US to face American federal charges.</s>NEW YORK — Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord who pocketed nearly $14 billion as the decadeslong head of the murderous Sinaloa cartel, was found guilty Tuesday of all 10 federal criminal counts against him, including the top charge of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.

The vast Brooklyn courtroom fell silent as the verdict was read. There was no visible reaction from Guzmán, who faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison. He’s due to be sentenced June 25.

US District Judge Brian Cogan confirmed the verdicts with each of the eight women and four men on the jury, telling them later their conduct on the panel “made me very proud to be an American.”

After the jury left the room, Guzman waved and smiled at his wife, Emma Coronel, a former beauty queen and courtroom regular who smiled back and touched her hand to her heart.

“Good, thank you,” she said when asked how she felt after the verdict.

The partially sequestered and anonymous jury deliberated roughly 34 hours over six days.

“We are obviously disappointed with the jury’s verdict in the trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera but are respectful of the process and the jury’s decision,” defense attorney Eduardo Balarezo said. “We were faced with extraordinary and unprecedented obstacles in defending Joaquín …”

Another member of the defense team, Jeffrey Lichtman, said they waged a vigorous defense against an “avalanche” of evidence and cooperating witnesses. They plan to file an appeal on a number of issues.

He said Guzman was in good spirits after the verdict.

“He’s a very upbeat guy. He was bringing our spirits up, which was surprising. Usually it’s the other way around,” Lichtman said. “He’s always been a gentleman, always been supportive, always been happy and appreciative of all our efforts.”

US Attorney for Eastern District of New York Richard Donoghue said the case represented a victory for the American people, for Mexican people who had lost loved ones in drug wars, and for every family who has lost someone to drug addiction.

“There are those who say the war on drugs is not worth fighting. Those people are wrong,” he said.

The case, Donoghue said, pulled back the curtain on international drug trafficking in a way no trial ever has, revealing the endemic corruption that allowed the Sinaloa cartel to operate.

“This is a day of reckoning, but there are more days of reckoning to come,” he said.

Guzmán, 61, was convicted of 10 counts, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs, and use of firearms.

He faces a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for leading a continuing criminal enterprise, and a sentence of up to life imprisonment on the remaining drug counts.

Federal prosecutors said they will seek a forfeiture judgment for billions of dollars constituting the cartel’s illegal drug-trafficking proceeds.

Over two and a half months, the jury heard testimony about unspeakable torture and ghastly murders, epic corruption at nearly every level of Mexico’s government, narco-mistresses and naked subterranean escapes, gold-plated AK-47s and monogrammed, diamond-encrusted pistols.

The prosecution’s case featured 200 hours of testimony from 56 witnesses. Fourteen of those witnesses — mostly admitted drug traffickers and cartel associates — cooperated with prosecutors in hopes of reducing their own prison sentences.

There were also surveillance photos, intercepted phone calls and text messages involving Guzmán, as well as exhibits of blingy firepower and bricks of cocaine that dropped with the force of potato sacks.

In contrast, defense attorneys called just one witness and focused on undermining the credibility of cooperating witnesses. Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said these witnesses had “lied every day of their lives — their miserable, selfish lives.”

Guzmán, once listed on Forbes’ Billionaires List, has long been a slippery and near-mythical figure. He escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001 in a laundry cart and again in 2015 through a tunnel. After he was recaptured in 2016, he was extradited to the US to face American federal charges.

The high-profile trial centered on the struggles and actions of El Chapo, who came from humble origins in the heart of Mexico’s rugged three-state Golden Triangle to become its most infamous native son.

The 12-week proceedings were conducted in part during the partial government shutdown over funding for a border wall. It showed that such fortification would have failed to stop tons of drugs the cartel moved from Mexico to the United States via fishing boats, trains, tractor-trailers, radar-evading airplanes, passenger cars at legal ports of entry, submarines, oil tankers, cocaine-laden cans of jalapeños and cross-border tunnels.

It included stunning testimony of corruption at nearly every echelon of Mexico’s government, from police and military commanders to local and state officials to former presidents who vehemently denied the allegations.

Under El Chapo, the Sinaloa cartel smuggled narcotics to wholesale distributors in Arizona, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York. , Experts have said that Guzmán’s capture in 2016, extradition one year later and conviction this week has not — and will not — diminish the power and reach of the Sinaloa cartel.</s>Three months ago, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán began his trial in the United States on federal drug conspiracy. Today (Feb. 12) in Brooklyn, a jury decided the fate of the Mexican drug cartel kingpin. El Chapo has been found guilty of all 10 charges after six days of deliberations in federal court.

The prosecutors accused El Chapo of trafficking large amounts of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States as the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.

All jurors, four men and eight women remained anonymous for their protection. When signing documents, they were to write their juror number instead of their name.

The trial had called over 50 key witnesses by the prosecution which all described Guzman's life along with the brutal murders, his journey in the secret tunnels and details on the plastic bananas filled with cocaine.

In 2015, Guzman escaped twice from Mexican prison with the most recent escape in 2015 where he was recaptured in 2016 and extradited to the United States in 2017.

Now the 61-year-old faces a possibility of life in prison.</s>NEW YORK – A federal jury slammed the door on a final escape bid by Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera on Tuesday, convicting the former leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel of drug trafficking, weapons charges and operating a criminal enterprise – a verdict that means he faces life in prison.

The panel of eight women and four men voted unanimously to find Guzmán guilty on all 10 criminal counts. It was the sixth day of deliberations.

Guzmán, 61, listened intently through a Spanish interpreter as U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan read the guilty counts aloud. He appeared subdued at the findings.

His wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, remained outwardly impassive during the verdict reading. She gave Guzmán a brief thumbs up just before security officers led him out of the courtroom.

The heavy security around the Brooklyn courthouse during the 12-week trial remained in place after the verdict. Soldiers in camouflage armed with assault rifles stood guard in the courthouse entrance as federal officials and defense lawyers went out into freezing rain pellets to discuss the verdict with reporters.

More: Now that he's been convicted of all counts, what's next for El Chapo?

Guzmán's legal team vowed to pursue an appeal after the sentence is imposed. Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said Guzmán remained optimistic – he "was bringing our spirits up," Lichtman said, instead of the other way around.

Federal officials declared the convictions a victory for the people of the USA and Mexico. The two countries bore the brunt of decades of violence and smuggling that killed thousands and addicted many more.

Prosecutors said the Sinaloa Cartel generated billions of dollars by smuggling tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs.

"There are those who say the war on drugs is not worth fighting," said Richard Donoghue, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. "Those people are wrong."

Uttam Dhillon, acting director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said the conviction "demonstrates the dedication and determination of the men and women of the DEA to bring the world's most notorious and prolific drug trafficker to justice."

Federal officials declined to answer questions about the verdict because Guzmán remains the subject of criminal charges in Florida, Texas and elsewhere. The officials declined to discuss whether Guzmán would be transferred to other federal districts for prosecution.

Lichtman said he and fellow defense lawyers Eduardo Balarezo and William Purpura faced "literally an avalanche of evidence" presented by federal prosecutors and what he characterized as a widespread perception of Guzmán's guilt long before the trial began in November.

"I don't think anybody would doubt that we fought like hell ... and left it all on the battlefield for Joaquín Guzmán," he said.

The defense team said its appeal would focus in part on restrictions the judge imposed on defense cross-examination of government witnesses, and on legal issues surrounding Guzmán's extradition to the USA for prosecution.

"Do I think it was a fair trial? No," Lichtman said. "Every witness and every question was a battle."

Prosecutors called 56 witnesses, 14 of them former associates of Guzmán who cooperated with the government in the hope of gaining leniency for their own crimes.

Guzmán decided not to testify in his own defense. The defense called one witness.

By turns grisly, comic and serious, the proceeding unfolded as a ready-for-telenovela look at Guzmán and the Sinaloa Cartel.

Prosecutors said he reaped hundreds of millions of dollars by smuggling and distributing tons of cocaine and heroin to cities across the USA from the late 1980s into the 2000s.

Dubbed "El Rápido" for his speed-to-market distribution network, he used cars, trucks, trains, planes, fishing boats, submarines and tunnels under the U.S.-Mexican border to deliver drugs.

Guzmán and his underlings hid drugs in chile containers, shipments of fish or in carefully concealed compartments.

In a superseding indictment, prosecutors said Guzmán and alleged co-leader Ismael Zambada García created the Sinaloa Cartel in the early 2000s from a Mexican drug trafficking federation.

The Mexican operation quickly became one of the world's largest narcotics smuggling organizations, shipping tons of Colombian cocaine first to Mexico, then on to the USA and beyond.

Guzmán's history of escapes made him something of a folk hero in Mexico. He was first arrested in Guatemala in 1993, extradited to Mexico, convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Incarcerated at the Federal Center for Social Rehabilitation No. 2 in Jalisco, he continued to lead the cartel from behind bars. Associates bribed prison staff to provide him with a comfortable lifestyle in prison, including private menus and prostitutes.

Guzmán was in prison when U.S. authorities indicted him on drug trafficking charges. Fearful of extradition to the USA, he bribed his way out of prison in 2001 and spent the next 13 years in hiding.

An international manhunt led authorities in 2014 to the Pacific Coast resort town of Mazatlán, where the Mexican navy arrested Guzmán, aided by intelligence from the U.S. DEA and the U.S. Marshals Service.

He escaped again the next year, this time from the country's Altiplano prison, through a nearly mile-long tunnel henchmen dug to the shower in his cell.

He was arrested for the last time by Mexican federal police in 2016 in the Sinaloa town of Los Mochis and extradited to the USA the following year.

Zambada, 71, has not been caught. He may be in Mexico.

During the trial at Brooklyn federal court, Guzmán's former associates provided some of the most damaging testimony.

His defense team focused most of its trial strategy on trying to discredit those witnesses.

Miguel Angel Martínez told jurors he had been one of Guzmán's trusted lieutenants until he was arrested in 2008.

Martínez described a rift with Guzmán that turned deadly. He testified that he sold a house that Guzmán had purchased under Martínez's name and tried to evict one of Guzmán's mistresses.

Martínez told jurors that the boss tried to have him killed four times. Before the fourth attempt – in which he said grenades were thrown into his jail cell – he said he was treated to an unusual serenade.

Martínez said a mariachi band assembled outside the jail walls to play "Un Puño de Tierra" – "A Fistful of Dirt" – a song he said was Guzmán's favorite. The corrido, or ballad, advises the listener to live life intensely, because when death comes, he'll take nothing with him but dirt.

Martínez said he interpreted the song as a message from Guzmán.

Juan Carlos Ramírez Abadía, a former leader of Colombia's Norte Valle cocaine cartel, said he relied on Guzman and the cartel to smuggle tons of the drug into Mexico and the USA.

Abadía, a notorious drug trafficker in his own right, underwent multiple plastic surgeries that transformed his appearance but failed to head off his capture.

Chicago-born drug trafficker Pedro Flores testified that he and his twin brother, Margarito, ran a distribution system that shipped Guzmán's cocaine to major U.S. cities.

After working with Guzmán, Flores testified, the brothers feared U.S. and Mexican authorities were closing in. They secretly recorded Guzmán allegedly discussing drug smuggling. Those recordings were played for jurors.

Dámaso López Nuñez, another alleged Guzmán lieutenant, told jurors he led the effort to spring the boss from Altiplano prison through the secret tunnel in 2015.

López Nuñez testified that Guzmán's wife was part of the plot, relaying the boss's instructions for the tunnel.

Coronel Aispuro. a regular presence in the courtroom during the 13-week trial, displayed no emotion during that testimony.

Isaias Valdez Rios told jurors that Guzmán interrogated, tortured and killed enemies. Veldez said Guzmán ordered one badly wounded man buried alive.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg opened her closing argument to jurors with Valdez's grisly account of the boss shooting two members of a rival drug gang, then ordering him and other cartel members to toss the bodies into a bonfire.

Lucero Guadalupe Sánchez López, a former Guzmán mistress, told jurors she helped him buy and distribute multi-kilo loads of marijuana.

She testified that she and her naked lover escaped from a Guzmán safe house in Culiacán as Mexican marines closed in by entering a tunnel hidden beneath a bathtub.

During a break in the trial, Sánchez could be heard sobbing in a waiting area outside the courtroom. Guzmán's wife smiled.

If Sánchez's testimony opened any rift between husband and wife, the couple didn't show it. When court security marshals brought Guzmán in for the next trial session, he was wearing a wine-red velvet smoking jacket.

Coronel Aispuro entered the courtroom a moment later in a nearly identical jacket.

The trial featured an art-meets-real-life moment as evidence presentation wound to a close.

Mexican actor Alejandro Edda, who portrays Guzmán in Netflix's "Narcos: Mexico," visited the courtroom to observe the man himself at the center of the defense table.

A court security officer warned spectators in Edda's seating area not to gesture, wave or give a thumbs up in Guzmán's direction.

The warning didn't deter Guzmán that day. He smiled broadly and waved to Edda.</s>Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera escaped childhood poverty, police raids, rivals’ hits and Mexican prisons twice, but the accused Sinaloa cartel leader couldn’t outrun a guilty verdict Tuesday on drug smuggling charges from a Brooklyn federal court jury.

After a colorful 2 1/2-month trial that featured a rogues' gallery of 14 federal informants spinning daily telenovela-style episodes of love, greed and betrayal against a backdrop of gunplay, corruption, underground escapes and murders, jurors convicted the accused cocaine kingpin on their sixth day of deliberations.

Guzmán, who traded in the bushy mustache, baseball cap, and jeans-with-a-gun-in-the-waistband of his heyday for a clean-shaven suit-and-tie look in court, didn’t react when the verdict was read just after noon, but made a hand-to-heart gesture to his wife Emma as jurors left. She reciprocated, giving him a thumbs up.

Although his defense team attacked the informants and said Guzmán was a scapegoat, they never actually denied he was in the drug business. Guzmán now faces a mandatory life sentence after being found guilty of leading a criminal enterprise that smuggled $14 billion of cocaine into the United States.

Convicted as well of conspiracy, drug distribution, money laundering and firearms charges, Guzmán is also likely to face a massive financial forfeiture judgment, but there was no evidence at trial that officials have traced the vast wealth they say he accumulated over three decades.

The courtroom was tense with anticipation when the end finally came after a week of waiting. More than a dozen marshals kept watch in court, and guards in camouflage fatigues with assault rifles patrolled in a light snow outside as U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan read the verdict to a packed gallery.

Jurors’ names were kept secret because of security concerns, and they weren’t available for comment afterward. But before setting Guzmán’s sentencing for June 25, Cogan praised their work.

“It made me very proud to be an American,” he told them.

Officials acknowledge that Guzmán's two years in U.S. custody has had little impact on Mexican drug smuggling. They say two of his sons, Ivan and Jesus, have taken over his leading role in the Sinaloa cartel, along with longtime partner Ismael "Mayo" Zambada, and seizures indicate that the cartel's shipments of cocaine, heroin and marijuana continue unabated.

But prosecutors nonetheless portrayed Tuesday’s verdict as a historic victory for Americans whose families have been harmed by illegal drugs, Mexicans whose country has been wracked by violent drug wars, and law enforcement agency campaigns to make the smuggling cartels accountable.

“This is a day of reckoning, but more days of reckoning are to come,” said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue.

And the agencies that painstakingly built the case over three decades expressed hope that the myth of El Chapo as an intrepid narco-outlaw was punctured by evidence that came out during the trial of Guzmán’s torture-murders of helpless men and sexual interests that extended to girls as young as 13.

"The real importance is that we never gave up," said Ray Donovan, the head of New York's Drug Enforcement Administration office. "Prior to the trial El Chapo was a household name, synonymous with fame and fortune. The chilling witness testimony introduced him as a ruthless killer, liar, adulterer and money launderer. It was important we display the truth.”

Guzmán’s lawyers said they were hamstrung from the start by a public assumption of guilt and special security measures that kept him in solitary confinement, and couldn’t overcome an “avalanche” of evidence including an almost unprecedented number of informants trying to please prosecutors.

They said Guzmán was a “strong guy” who was “prepared for the result” and had instructed them to keep fighting with an appeal likely to focus on issues ranging from his 2017 extradition to limits on their cross examination at trial.

“For better or worse,” said defense lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman, “this is a guy who never gives up.”

The verdict appeared to mark the start of a final chapter in the eventful life of Guzmán, 61, who was born into rural poverty in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, has said he grew poppies to make money as a teen, and became a drug lord and folk hero with celebrity rivaling the late Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar.

According to trial testimony, his prominence grew among Mexican drug traffickers in the 1990s because he brashly promised Colombian suppliers faster transit of their cocaine to the United States in return for higher fees — and delivered via innovative cross-border tunnels and a deep network of corrupt police, military and political officials.

Nicknamed “El Rapido,” Guzmán invented new methods as quickly as the old were uncovered — hiding bricks in chili pepper cans on trucks, and then building secret compartments in rail cars shipping cooking oil. He smuggled hundreds of tons, bought jets, yachts and ranches — one with a private zoo — throughout Mexico, and traveled the world, even paying for anti-aging therapy at a Swiss clinic.

The government's witnesses included characters that seemed ripped from a Hollywood script. Juan Carlos Ramírez Abadía, aka "Chupeta," a Colombian drug lord with a macabre face disfigured by multiple plastic surgeries, testified he had a role in 150 murders. Ex-mistress Lucero Sanchez told jurors about fleeing police with a naked Guzmán through a trap door under a bathtub that led to a storm sewer.

Miguel Martínez Martínez, a lieutenant with a septum damaged by cocaine, told how a band outside his prison window serenaded him with Guzmán's favorite song just before a grenade was tossed into his cell. Christian Rodriguez, an entrepreneurial young Colombian tech whiz, testified about designing an encrypted phone system with spyware for Guzmán, then flipping and exposing it all to federal agents.

The witnesses provided new details of Guzmán's prison escape in 2001 in a laundry cart, and another through a mile-long tunnel in 2015 — implicating Emma, his wife, as a message courier while she watched from the courtroom's second row — along with massive cash bribes to cops and politicians that allowed him to live on the lam and burnished his legend.

Along with the escapades, however, the trial also revealed an even darker side. Several witnesses described Guzmán's central role in prosecuting drug wars against rival cartels that killed hundreds — civilians and enemies alike. A former guard told jurors how Guzmán personally beat, tortured and killed three men, burning two of them.

In summations, defense lawyers told jurors the zeal to get Guzmán had a cost. The 14 informants who testified — including “Chupeta,” the murderous Colombian drug lord, cartel co-leader Zambada’s son Vicente and brother Rey, and Alex Cifuentes, the aide who used and procured young girls for Guzmán — would soon “live among us” as a reward, they warned.

But after the verdict, federal officials countered with a warning of their own for drug traffickers still on the loose.

“It sends a resounding message,” said Angel Melendez, the head of Homeland Security Investigations’ New York office. “You are not unreachable. You are not untouchable. And your day will come.”</s>A jury has found drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán guilty of drug trafficking, weapons charges and money laundering, a verdict that means he will face life in prison at his sentencing. The leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel has been in American custody since early 2017.

The decision came Tuesday, February 12th, after nearly three months of testimony from a wide assortment of former associates and underlings of Guzmán, who walked jurors through more than 30 years of the drug lord’s career as a trafficker, describing smuggling routes, wars with rival cartels, bribery and a handful of brutal murders ordered, and in some case committed, by the defendant.

Guzmán, 61, was found guilty on all charges. The top count, which carries a life sentence, was running in a continuing criminal enterprise, a wide-ranging charge that includes conspiracy to traffick drugs and conspiracy to commit murder. Count two was for manufacture and distribution of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana, while counts three through seven were for importation or distribution of cocaine. Count nine was for use of firearms, and count 10 was for laundering the vast profits the cartel made from drug trafficking.

The jury, consisting of seven women and five men, deliberated for 35 hours over five and a half days before returning with a verdict.

El Chapo remained stoic as Judge Brian M. Cogan read the jury’s verdict, and stared in the direction of the jury when Cogan, at the request of the defense team, quizzed each juror one by one if the all-count guilty verdict reflected their vote. One by one, they replied yes.

Before dismissing the jurors, Cogan thanked them for their service, and praised their dedication.

“In my 13 years as a judge, I have never seen a jury pay this kind of attention to detail,” Cogan said. “This makes me proud to be an American.”

As the jurors left the courtroom for the last time, Guzmán nodded several times to his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, who sat, as she had throughout the trial, in the second row of the gallery. With a smile, he gave her a thumbs up, and with a resolute look on his face, turned away as United States Marshals led him away.

Sentencing has been scheduled tentatively for June 25th, but there’s little mystery about Guzmán’s likely fate: he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison, and will likely be moved to ADX Florence, a so-called “supermax” prison in Florence, Colorado that is currently home to the likes of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Guzmán’s sworn enemy Osiel Cárdenas Guillen, a former leader of the Zetas cartel, a bitter rival to El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel.

Speaking with reporters outside the federal courthouse in Downtown Brooklyn in a flurry of snow and freezing rain, defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said El Chapo and his lawyers were “devastated” by the verdict, but promised to appeal and pledged to “fight until our last breath.”

“Joaquín Guzmán, I understand what society thinks of him,” Lichtman said. “But it was an absolute honor to represent him.”

In a press conference held immediately following the guilty verdict, U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donaghue said the case was a victory.

“Today, Guzmán Loera has been held accountable for the tons of illegal narcotics he trafficked for more than two decades, the murders he ordered and committed, and the billions of dollars he reaped while causing incalculable pain and suffering to those devastated by his drugs,” Donaghue said.

As Donaghue spoke, Guzmán’s wife hustled out of the building, flanked by her lawyer and an escort of heavily armed law-enforcement agents. As reporters dashed away from Donaghue and swarmed Coronel, she and her entourage pushed through the crowd before she stepped into a waiting SUV. She said nothing.

The verdict brought to a close a marathon trial that has, since early November, turned the federal courthouse in Downtown Brooklyn into a virtual fortress, complete with rooftop snipers, bomb-sniffing dogs, armed patrols by at least three law-enforcement agencies, and even a team from the National Guard equipped with a Geiger counter designed to detect nuclear radiation.

The trial was often a media sensation, with dozens of reporters from across Latin America and the United States covering the proceedings closely enough to be on a first-name basis with court-security officers. It was also a tourist destination, drawing curious gawkers from around the world eager to line up outside the courthouse before dawn and go through two security checkpoints just to get a glimpse at the famous narco don.

In the final weeks of the trial, reporters and particularly hearty audience members could be seen huddling in the courthouse vestibule in the predawn dark, even on mornings where temperatures plunged close to zero. On the final two nights, sleeping bags appeared.

Two days after both sides presented their closing arguments, a series of disturbing allegations against Guzmán surfaced in a cache of recently unsealed documents, including accusations from one cooperating witness that El Chapo had drugged and raped girls as young as 13. But jurors never heard those accusations, as the prosecution had successfully lobbied for Judge Brian M. Cogan to preclude any discussion of them, deeming them prejudicial and “irrelevant” to the criminal case against the defendant.

Deliberations began Monday, February 4th, just after 1 p.m, after several hours of instruction on the charges from Judge Brian M. Cogan. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg, who delivered the prosecution’s closing argument in an all-day session on January 30th, implored jurors to see to it that Guzmán, notorious for two dramatic escapes from Mexican prisons, would never again evade justice for his crimes.

“Do not let him escape,” Goldbarg said Wednesday. “Hold him accountable for his crimes. Find him guilty on all counts.”

The defense’s closing arguments focused heavily on Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, 71, El Chapo’s former partner who is reputedly the current head of the Sinaloa Cartel, and who was a favorite target of the defense throughout the trial. Since November, El Chapo’s lawyers have repeatedly tried to identify Zambada as the sole leader of the cartel.

“El Mayo bribed everyone from local beat cops to presidents of Mexico, and every politician was made rich by Mayo,” Lichtman said in his closing monologue. “So everyone wants to catch the famous El Chapo, who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”

“While the world focuses on this mythical Chapo figure, the world is not focusing on Mayo Zambada,” Lichtman told jurors in his opening statement on November 14th. “El Mayo is comfortable, evading capture his entire life.”

From the beginning, Guzmán faced an uphill battle. The evidence, spanning Guzman’s decades in the drug business, was staggering, and revealed many new details about the inner workings of the Sinaloa empire. It showed just how extensive its systematic bribery of law-enforcement officials in Mexico was, as well as details about Guzmán’s life and character. In particular, it shed light on the years he had spent in hiding between his 2001 escape from a Mexican prison and his capture in 2014.

The prosecution called 56 witnesses in total to testify against Guzmán, a majority of them current and former federal agents whose investigations had come into contact with Guzmán’s sprawling drug-trafficking network. But the heart of the government’s case were 14 cooperating witnesses, most of whom had worked closely with Guzmán at various stages in his career, and many of whom had already pleaded guilty to drug-trafficking charges and confessed to far more fearsome wrongdoing, including one Colombian narco who said he had personally ordered the deaths of about 150 people.

The witnesses provided a sketches of testimony that began to gel into a comprehensive portrait of Guzmán’s life and empire. Some, like the first cooperating witness, Jesus Reynaldo “El Rey” Zambada García — El Mayo’s brother — and early cartel lieutenant Miguel Ángel Martinez Martinez, described how El Chapo built and rebuilt his operations in Mexico.

Others, like the cartoonishly sinister Colombian trafficker Carlos “Chupeta” Ramírez Abadía, his face disfigured by several botched plastic surgeries, told jurors about Guzmán’s international connections.

As the trial progressed, witnesses began to describe a full portrait of Guzmán’s empire: the Colombian traffickers who supplied him cocaine, forking over 40 percent of the load in exchange for Guzmán’s reliable swiftness and sway with the Mexican authorities he had on the payroll; the henchmen and secretaries who witnessed El Chapo’s daily life on the lam in the years he spent hiding out in the mountains of Sinaloa; and the bit players, some well removed from Guzmán’s inner circle, who oversaw on-the-ground smuggling of drugs and weapons.

Some witnesses, like the Colombian trafficker Jorge Cifuentes, described several catastrophic errors made by Guzmán, which resulted in two massive cocaine seizures by authorities in Ecuador and revealed a fallibility on Guzmán’s part that clashed with his mythical image.

El Rey, along with his nephew Vicente Zambada Niebla — El Mayo’s son — described how Guzmán’s feuds with former allies turned into bloody wars that cost the cartel business and turned up the heat from authorities.

Others described his brutality. In by far the most gruesome testimony of the trial, cartel henchman Isaias Valdez Ríos described how El Chapo kidnapped, tortured and executed gunmen loyal to rival cartels. In once instance, after beating a pair of men belonging to the Zetas cartel within an inch of their lives, he shot them and ordered their bodies burned, Valdez said. Another time, Valdez said, he shot a man and buried him alive.

The stories told by these witnesses were often sensational, frequently shocking. Throughout the trial, defense attorneys Angel Eduardo Balarezo, William Purpura and Jeffrey Lichtman hammered away at the prosecution’s witnesses, picking at inconsistencies in their testimony and attacking their credibility — all but two of the cooperating witnesses were in federal custody and hoping for reduced sentences and special visas for them and their families to live in the United States.

But the government had more substantial evidence at their disposal.

In January, the turning point in the trial came when prosecutors revealed a huge cache of hard evidence showing Guzmán taking an active role in cartel operations: text messages and phone recordings in which he negotiated the price per kilo of drug shipments — including one with a representative of the FARC, the Colombian guerilla group — and discussing violence and bribery with his henchmen.

The bulk of the phone calls came thanks to Christian Rodriguez, a young Colombian tech whiz hired by the cartel in 2008 to set up an encrypted messaging network that would allow Guzmán to maintain real-time communications with his lieutenants even while tucked away in his mountain hideouts. Rodriguez did his job well at first, updating the cartel’s comms from Nextel push-to-talk phones to a system of Blackberrys outfitted with a secure network based on servers in Canada on which Guzmán and his underlings could, in theory, speak freely. Soon, Guzmán had another request: the increasingly paranoid El Chapo wanted to know what people were saying about him, so he had Rodriguez install FlexiSpy, a spyware program, on Blackberrys that Guzmán gave out to top aides, as well as to his wife and girlfriends. At one point, El Chapo even asked Rodriguez if he could install the program on computers in every internet cafe in Culiacán.

But Rodriguez didn’t have the stomach for narco life. After a close call with the Mexican military, in which Rodriguez, El Chapo and his security entourage spent three days trekking through the mountains while fleeing a search party, Rodriguez continued his work remotely, but said he was badly shaken. Then, in 2010, the FBI recorded him talking to an undercover informant posing as a Russian mobster. After confronting Rodriguez in Bogotá, FBI agents convinced Rodriguez to hand them the keys to the system, allowing agents to record hundreds of calls between cartel honchos discussing sensitive business.

Jurors heard Guzmán discussing the price per kilo of cocaine shipments. They heard him speaking with urging caution to a hitman named Cholo Iván, who was complaining about a crew of corrupt cops on the cartel payroll who weren’t keeping up their end of the bargain. (“You taught us to be like a wolf,” Cholo Iván reminded Guzmán.)

In series of text messages with a girlfriend who worked as an intermediary, he threw caution to the wind and asked if she was referring to cocaine or marijuana when her coded language was just a bit too obtuse.

The picture was clear: if the man on the tapes with the voice described by one agent as sing-songy” was indeed Guzmán, the recordings and texts showed a mafia leader with a close eye for detail who took an active role in the cartel’s day-to-day business.

Addressing jurors at the end of her final arguments, Goldbarg told jurors that put together, the witnesses and the intercepted communications formed a sprawling, comprehensive case showing decades of direct leadership in a vast criminal conspiracy.

“This was the defendant running his empire,” Goldbarg said.</s>NEW YORK – Hey, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán – you've just been convicted on criminal drug charges that have you facing life in prison. Where are you going now?

And an escape from U.S. authorities — like the two jailbreaks in his native Mexico that made the Sinaloa drug cartel leader internationally notorious — seems far-fetched.

Nonetheless, the 61-year old drug lord's days in a courtroom aren't over.

U.S. District Court Judge Brian Cogan on Tuesday set a tentative June 25 sentencing date for Guzmán.

The timetable could change. The sentencing could mean one more middle-of-the-night trip from Manhattan to Brooklyn, across a closed-down Brooklyn Bridge with a heavily fortified police escort and helicopters following above.

A federal jury on Tuesday found Guzmán guilty of all 10 criminal counts against him, including drug trafficking, weapons violations and operating a continuing criminal enterprise. The last charge carries a sentence of up to life in prison.

His legal team immediately vowed to appeal the conviction. Defense lawyers plan to argue in part that they were improperly limited in their cross-examination of the 14 former cartel associates who testified against the former boss.

They also plan to challenge legal issues surrounding Guzmán's extradition from Mexico to stand trial in the U.S.

The appeal would be filed in the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after Guzmán's sentencing. Appeals can take months to resolve.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said Guzmán remained optimistic about his future.

More: Federal jury finds drug lord Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán guilty of all counts

Prosecutors presented a mountain of evidence that showed Guzmán oversaw the shipment of tons of cocaine and other drugs into the United States, generating billions of dollars in profits for the cartel.

The case covered virtually all facets of Guzmán's criminal career. But he's still a defendant in similar federal indictments in Florida, Texas and elsewhere.

Although it seems unlikely that those cases will now go forward, federal officials pointedly declined to take questions about Tuesday's verdicts because the other prosecutions remain open.

The prospect of where Guzmán would serve his sentence might undo at least some of the upbeat resolve touted by his defense team.

More: El Chapo lawyer says accusers lied to jury, and prosecutors let them

Federal officials haven't publicly discussed prison plans for Guzmán. But one possibility within the U.S. Bureau of Prisons system is the so-called Supermax, the U.S. penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.

It's the highest-security prison in the nation. It's the current home of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the organizer of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and Theodore Kaczynski – the Unabomber.
At his trial in a Brooklyn federal court, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán is found guilty on all 10 counts; the charges include engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs, and use of firearms during the commission of a felony.