Inside the Courtroom: El Chapo Appeared Stunned After Verdict – The New York Times

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There seemed little doubt, even from the start, that the Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera would be convicted at his epic drug trial in New York. But when the verdict finally arrived, at 12:31 p.m. on Tuesday, sadness, pride and, for many, sheer relief that the marathon was over swept through the Brooklyn courtroom, ending not only a grueling three-month trial, but an excruciating week of jury deliberations.

The first sign that a verdict had been reached came just after noon when Melonie Clarke, Judge Brian M. Cogan’s deputy, entered the eighth-floor courtroom to tell the defense and prosecution that jurors had just sent out a note saying they had come to a decision. For the next 25 minutes, a crowd of lawyers, reporters and government officials waited anxiously for the answer to a question most assumed they had known for weeks: Was the kingpin, known to the world as El Chapo, guilty?

At one point, Richard P. Donoghue, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, appeared in court to wish his prosecution team good luck, shaking each of their hands. Jeffrey Lichtman, one of Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers, did the same in an apparent show of sportsmanship.

Then, at 12:25 p.m., Mr. Guzmán was brought into the courtroom by several federal marshals and, as he had done throughout the trial, looked immediately at his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, who was sitting on a bench in the second row. As more marshals — called in to provide security — filled the well of the court, Judge Cogan announced from the bench: “We have reached a verdict.”