Defense lawyer: Government case against El Chapo ‘a fantasy’
A defense attorney for Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman assailed the federal case against the Mexican drug lord as “a fantasy,” telling a U.S. jury Thursday that the prosecution relied on a parade of cooperating witnesses who “lie, steal, cheat, deal drugs and kill people” for a living.
In an impassioned closing argument, defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said prosecutors failed to address a “600-pound gorilla” of reasonable doubt in their bid to convict one of the world’s most notorious drug traffickers. He dismissed the testimony of government witnesses as “repulsive, dishonest garbage” and called into question the motives of the U.S. Justice Department, which he accused of disregarding another man the defense calls the actual cartel leader.
The prosecution, Lichtman added, orchestrated a “scripted event” over the past three months in federal court in Brooklyn based on the shifting accounts of degenerate drug dealers seeking leniency in their own cases.