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Prosecution witness against 'El Chapo' Guzmán admits to killings, lies
Dec. 4, 2018
"NEW YORK – At the start of the federal trial of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, defense lawyers said they would discredit prosecution witnesses as criminal liars who would say anything to convict the accused Mexican drug lord and win leniency for their own crimes.
A defense lawyer hammered Juan Carlos Ramírez Abadía in Brooklyn federal court Tuesday, getting the witness who testified he was Guzmán's Colombia cocaine supplier to admit he ordered roughly 150 killings – including the assassination of a man in the Queens borough of New York.
The former head of Colombia's Norte Valle cocaine cartel even kept financial records that listed the costs of some killings to the dollar.
Guzmán lawyer William Purpura showed jurors an image of a business ledger and asked Ramírez if one entry referred to "the murders of three people."
"That's correct," said Ramírez, whose benign-seeming drug cartel nickname is Chupeta, or lollipop.
The witness said he did not remember the victim's names, but he readily confirmed the cost of the killings: $45,000....
Ramírez wore a winter parka and, at times, gloves, during his courtroom testimony....
Ramírez, 55, may receive a maximum prison sentence of 30 years for a guilty plea he entered in 2010. The sentence could be reduced to 25 years if prosecutors tell a federal judge he told the truth and cooperated fully in cases against others.
Ramírez is the third confessed co-conspirator to identify Guzmán as a kingpin of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel. ..."
Prosecution witness against 'El Chapo' Guzmán admits to killings, lies
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A witness more brutal than 'El Chapo' testifies in drug lord's trial
DEC 04, 2018
"From the moment Colombian cartel boss Juan Carlos “Chupeta” Ramirez Abadia sat down to testify against Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, no one in the courtroom could tear their eyes from his surgically mutilated face. But it wasn’t until his third day on the stand that he was unmasked as a monster — in the first strong showing for Guzman's defense.
Known as “The Man of a Thousand Faces,” the longtime head of Colombia’s brutal North Valley cartel underwent multiple surgeries to disguise his identity while on the lam in Brazil. Between the mid-1980s and his arrest in 2007, he ran a vast narcotics empire, working hand-in-glove with the Sinaloa cartel to move dizzying quantities of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the United States.
He is also a killer, who pleaded guilty in a U.S. court in 2010 to ordering the murders of at least 150 people and personally shooting one victim in the face. He has not yet been sentenced, but hopes to have five years shaved off his prison term in exchange for his testimony.
On Tuesday, jurors learned that he tracked each of those assassinations in the very same spreadsheets U.S. Atty. Andrea Goldbarg had combed over and over again for close to two days of direct testimony, while many had struggled to stay awake....
As cunning, ruthless and extravagant as Guzman was in his heyday, his Colombian supplier was that much more so. Everything Chapo did, Chupeta did bigger, whether it was the volume of cocaine he controlled, the size of his palatial homes, or the extremes he took to evade capture and extradition to the U.S. To Ramirez Abadia, Guzman was a middle man, albeit a crucial one. Guzman is fighting charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder and weapons violations. Ramirez Abadia admitted to all of them, gleefully....
...on redirect, the prosecution barely acknowledged what had happened, asking only briefly about the bloody events that had jurors on the edge of their seats after days of nodding and yawning.
“As a leader of a drug cartel, why did you engage in violence?” Goldbarg asked.
“It’s impossible to be a leader of a cartel in Colombia without violence,” the killer said."
A witness more brutal than 'El Chapo' testifies in drug lord's trial
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'El Chapo' consort opens up about cartels' ruthlessness
"NEW YORK – A key government witness at the U.S. trial of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman spelled out the bloodshed and other cold realities of international drug-trafficking Tuesday without expressing regret or making excuses.
Former Colombian kingpin Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia was asked on cross-examination by a lawyer for Guzman whether he ordered scores of murders, whether he kept a ledger that showed how much hit men were paid, and whether he repeatedly lied to and bribed Colombian authorities with tens of millions of dollars to stay in business.
Among the matter-of-fact answers he gave through a Spanish interpreter: "Totally correct." ''Obviously." ''At the time, of course I lied." ''That's how it was, sir."..."
'El Chapo' consort opens up about cartels' ruthlessness
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Dec. 4, 2018
"NEW YORK – At the start of the federal trial of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, defense lawyers said they would discredit prosecution witnesses as criminal liars who would say anything to convict the accused Mexican drug lord and win leniency for their own crimes.
A defense lawyer hammered Juan Carlos Ramírez Abadía in Brooklyn federal court Tuesday, getting the witness who testified he was Guzmán's Colombia cocaine supplier to admit he ordered roughly 150 killings – including the assassination of a man in the Queens borough of New York.
The former head of Colombia's Norte Valle cocaine cartel even kept financial records that listed the costs of some killings to the dollar.
Guzmán lawyer William Purpura showed jurors an image of a business ledger and asked Ramírez if one entry referred to "the murders of three people."
"That's correct," said Ramírez, whose benign-seeming drug cartel nickname is Chupeta, or lollipop.
The witness said he did not remember the victim's names, but he readily confirmed the cost of the killings: $45,000....
Ramírez wore a winter parka and, at times, gloves, during his courtroom testimony....
Ramírez, 55, may receive a maximum prison sentence of 30 years for a guilty plea he entered in 2010. The sentence could be reduced to 25 years if prosecutors tell a federal judge he told the truth and cooperated fully in cases against others.
Ramírez is the third confessed co-conspirator to identify Guzmán as a kingpin of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel. ..."
Prosecution witness against 'El Chapo' Guzmán admits to killings, lies
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A witness more brutal than 'El Chapo' testifies in drug lord's trial
DEC 04, 2018
"From the moment Colombian cartel boss Juan Carlos “Chupeta” Ramirez Abadia sat down to testify against Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, no one in the courtroom could tear their eyes from his surgically mutilated face. But it wasn’t until his third day on the stand that he was unmasked as a monster — in the first strong showing for Guzman's defense.
Known as “The Man of a Thousand Faces,” the longtime head of Colombia’s brutal North Valley cartel underwent multiple surgeries to disguise his identity while on the lam in Brazil. Between the mid-1980s and his arrest in 2007, he ran a vast narcotics empire, working hand-in-glove with the Sinaloa cartel to move dizzying quantities of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the United States.
He is also a killer, who pleaded guilty in a U.S. court in 2010 to ordering the murders of at least 150 people and personally shooting one victim in the face. He has not yet been sentenced, but hopes to have five years shaved off his prison term in exchange for his testimony.
On Tuesday, jurors learned that he tracked each of those assassinations in the very same spreadsheets U.S. Atty. Andrea Goldbarg had combed over and over again for close to two days of direct testimony, while many had struggled to stay awake....
As cunning, ruthless and extravagant as Guzman was in his heyday, his Colombian supplier was that much more so. Everything Chapo did, Chupeta did bigger, whether it was the volume of cocaine he controlled, the size of his palatial homes, or the extremes he took to evade capture and extradition to the U.S. To Ramirez Abadia, Guzman was a middle man, albeit a crucial one. Guzman is fighting charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder and weapons violations. Ramirez Abadia admitted to all of them, gleefully....
...on redirect, the prosecution barely acknowledged what had happened, asking only briefly about the bloody events that had jurors on the edge of their seats after days of nodding and yawning.
“As a leader of a drug cartel, why did you engage in violence?” Goldbarg asked.
“It’s impossible to be a leader of a cartel in Colombia without violence,” the killer said."
A witness more brutal than 'El Chapo' testifies in drug lord's trial
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'El Chapo' consort opens up about cartels' ruthlessness
"NEW YORK – A key government witness at the U.S. trial of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman spelled out the bloodshed and other cold realities of international drug-trafficking Tuesday without expressing regret or making excuses.
Former Colombian kingpin Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia was asked on cross-examination by a lawyer for Guzman whether he ordered scores of murders, whether he kept a ledger that showed how much hit men were paid, and whether he repeatedly lied to and bribed Colombian authorities with tens of millions of dollars to stay in business.
Among the matter-of-fact answers he gave through a Spanish interpreter: "Totally correct." ''Obviously." ''At the time, of course I lied." ''That's how it was, sir."..."
'El Chapo' consort opens up about cartels' ruthlessness
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