MEXICO CITY—Drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is willing to plead guilty to any charges in the United States if U.S. authorities promise him a short sentence in a medium-security prison, one of his lawyers said Wednesday.
Guzman wants to accelerate the extradition process so he can escape harsh conditions in a Mexican maximum security prison, where guards will not let his client sleep, lawyer Jose Refugio Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said that he and Guzman’s family are reviewing options for a U.S. defense attorney.
“We have talked about a proposal ... to plead guilty to the charges in the United States without questioning their veracity,” said Rodriguez, who heads Guzman’s legal team.
“That in exchange for a reduction in the applicable sentence like others have done in these situations, but also look for a medium-security prison so that he’s not in the conditions that he has here,” he said, calling the decision “an act of desperation” because Guzman had “reached his limit.”
The man considered the leader of the Sinaloa cartel faces charges in seven U.S. attorneys’ offices in cities including Chicago, New York, Miami and San Diego among others.
