El Chapo Betrayed Mexican Cartel Kingpin Beltran-Leyva, Then Hired His Lawyer Keegan Hamilton - VICE News
go to original September 25, 2017

Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and Alfredo Beltrán-Leyva were friends and relatives by marriage — until they became bitter enemies. They worked together to become two of Mexico’s most powerful drug lords, then they went to war with each other. Now the years-long saga between the pair has taken a peculiar new turn: They have the same lawyer.

With Chapo awaiting trial in Brooklyn early next year on a slew of conspiracy charges, he’s hired a lawyer who recently defended Beltrán-Leyva in a very similar battle with the Justice Department. Beltrán-Leyva was sentenced in April to life in U.S. federal prison after pleading guilty to distributing multiple tons of cocaine and meth. The same fate could await Chapo if he’s convicted.

The lawyer, Angel Eduardo Balarezo, officially became Chapo’s private counsel September 3, and he’s in the midst of a month-long handoff of the case with the public defenders who have controversially represented the purported billionaire at taxpayer expense since he was extradited from Mexico in January. Balarezo is set to take over entirely on October 2, and he’s expected to be joined by Jeffrey Lichtman, another attorney Chapo has on retainer who is famous for defending New York City mob boss John Gotti Jr.

Balarezo took the job despite the possibility that U.S. authorities could try to confiscate his paycheck. Prosecutors are trying to seize $14 billion worth of assets from Chapo, the estimated value of the drugs he’s accused of smuggling over the years. The Justice Department initially tried to take $10 billion in drug money from Beltrán-Leyva, but Balarezo persuaded a judge to lower the demand to $529 million after arguing the initial figure was “pulled from thin air.” The payment issue has been a point of contention in Chapo’s case, with the government simultaneously arguing that he shouldn’t have a public defender while refusing to promise not to take any funds paid to private lawyers.

“I made an educated decision that I will get paid for my services,” Balarezo told VICE News. “Obviously, nobody wants to work for free. I made a decision, I reviewed the law, reviewed what the situation was, and decided I’d go for it.”

Prosecutors could potentially raise objections to Balarezo’s involvement with Chapo due to his handling of the Beltrán-Leyva case. The prosecution previously argued that the public defenders assigned to Chapo had a conflict of interest because other lawyers in their association briefly represented other drug traffickers who are tangentially involved in the case. Beltrán-Leyva is much more closely tined with Chapo, and Balarezo filed a letter to the court under seal on September 6 titled “Concerning Possible Conflict of Interest.”

Related: Counsel to the Cartel: We Talked to El Chapo’s Lawyer About Defending a Notorious Drug Lord (VICE News)

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