NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — Accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is scheduled to appear in person in a federal court Friday in Brooklyn.
A judge initially ruled that Guzman would appear in court by video on Friday rather than have marshals escort him to and from a high-security Manhattan jail cell.
The order was changed after his lawyers asked the judge to reconsider. They argued it could give off the impression that Guzman was too dangerous to appear in court, CBS2’s Janelle Burrell reported.
Guzman is charged with running a massive drug trafficking operation that laundered billions of dollars and oversaw murders and kidnappings.
“Guzman’s destructive and murderous rise as an international narcotics trafficker is akin to that of a small cancerous tumor that metastasized and grew into a full born scourge,” said U. S. Attorney Robert L. Capers.
Guzman has repeatedly been imprisoned and escaped in Mexico. U. S. authorities have pursued him for years.
To get Mexico to hand him over to the U. S. , prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. They’re demanding he forfeit $14 billion in assets.
Guzman has pleaded not guilty.
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