Government has evidence indicating El Chapo was not top leader of Sinaloa Cartel

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat

Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzman’s attorney, Eduardo Balarezo filed with the court,  a motion to the government’s opposition to compel with respect to potentially exculpatory evidence.

Exculpatory evidence is evidence that could be in the favor of Guzman.  In this case,  the stand out is that Guzman was not the premier leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, but was working under others.  

Balarezo contends that the government has possessed evidence all along, that Guzman was not the head of the cartel, a charge against him in the case. 

Guzman was charged with overseeing a continuing criminal enterprise. Balarezo said the government sent him a bullet-pointed list of possibly exonerating information about Guzman on June 4, including material detailing his "relative standing" among other drug dealers.

The government says they were only required to prove Guzman supervised five or more people.

"Whether he was equally powerful or more powerful does not negate his role," said government attorney Andrea Goldbarg.

From the filing:

More importantly, the government deliberately ignores the value to the defense of at least 9 other items (bullet points 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 19, 21 and 23) that specifically indicate that Mr. Guzmán was not the leader, nor a leader, of the so-called Sinaloa Cartel or some other drug-trafficking organization. 

Since the favorable or exculpatory nature of that information escapes the prosecutors who “make a judgment as to the exculpatory character and materiality of evidence that might fall within the ambit of Brady,” Mr. Guzmán reminds the government of the first count in the indictment. 

Count 1 charges that from 1989 to 2014, Mr. Guzmán engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise and that he “occupied supervisory and management positions,” and was “one of several principal administrators, organizers and leaders of the continuing criminal enterprise.”Doc. No. 14 at 5; see also 21 U.S.C. § 848(b). That the government can claim with a straight face that those specific items are not favorable or exculpatory strains credulity.