Convicted Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman intends to seek a new trial after one of the jurors who convicted him revealed jurors read media about the case, a lawyer for Guzman says.
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"Mr Guzman intends to file motion for a new trial based on the disclosures in the article and to request an evidentiary hearing to determine the extent of the misconduct," lawyer Eduardo Balarezo said in a letter to US District Judge Brian Cogan, who presided over the trial in Brooklyn.
Normally, a motion for a new trial must be filed within 14 days of a verdict, putting the deadline at next Tuesday.
Balarezo asked for an additional 30 days to file the motion.
A spokesman for the prosecutors declined to comment.
Guzman was found guilty on February 12 of running a continuing criminal enterprise as leader of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, along with drug trafficking, weapons and money laundering conspiracy charges.
He faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison, with no possibility of parole.
Cogan had instructed jurors not to read media coverage of the case or discuss it with one another at the end of every day of Guzman's nearly three-month trial.
Nonetheless, an anonymous juror in an interview with Vice News published on Wednesday said that he or she and multiple other jurors routinely looked at Twitter posts from journalists covering the case.
The juror said that multiple jurors lied when Cogan asked them directly whether they had read specific media reports related to the case, according to Vice News.
Australian Associated Press
