A judge has granted El Chapo’s lawyers’ request for him to undergo psychiatric evaluation after they claimed in court documents how he was losing his mind in jail.
The 60-year-old drug baron smiled and waved at his 28-year-old wife Emma Coronel Aispuro and their two young daughters during the brief appearance at the Brooklyn courthouse on Wednesday.
El Chapo, whose real name is Joaquín Guzmán Loera, has been in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility since January this year.
His lawyers filed a motion in court last week pleading for him to see a doctor and undergo testing because they say his mental health has ‘deteriorated’ as a result of the harsh conditions there.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan granted their request.
El Chapo, 60, (pictured as he was extradited to the US from Mexico in January) was granted a psychiatric evaluation at a court hearing on Wednesday
He urged them to have it done sooner rather than later, telling them: ‘Get her in there quickly.’
He strictly ordered that the two-time prison escapee is to have no physical contact with the psychiatrist and that he is only allowed to talk to her.
Judge Cogan also warned the prosecution, who told of the ‘thousands’ of documents of evidence they planned to use, to give El Chapo’s team enough time to review it before the case goes to trial in April.
Outside the courthouse, Guzmán’s lawyer said: ‘His memory is failing. He’s not remembering things.’
If he is found mentally incompetent, he may not have to stand trial for the 17 federal charges he faces.
In their filing last week, his attorneys said the notoriously harsh conditions inside the prison have left him with a ringing in his ears, a sore throat and mental health problems.
They say that in the last month, he has forgotten people and places and claim that staff at the prison treat him unfairly by not allowing him to buy bottled water or batteries for his radio.
El Chapo’s lawyer Eduardo Balarezo outside the Brooklyn courthouse on Wednesday following their brief appearance. He said the drug lord’s memory was ‘failing’
Armed police officers stand guard outside the Brooklyn courthouse on Wednesday during El Chapo’s appearance
The drug baron is depicted in an artist’s sketch from a previous court appearance. He has not been photographed since he was brought to the US in January
During the hearing, El Chapo waved to his 28-year-old wife Emma Coronel Aispuro (above in February at another of his court appearances)
Guzman was extradited to the US in January a year after being captured in Mexico. He had been on the run for six months after escaping from a maximum security prison in through a tunnel which led to the shower in his cell.
Guzman faces 17 federal charges relating to the drug enterprise he ran as the head of the Sinaloa cartel between the 1980s and when he was caught.
His wife, a former beauty queen, attended one of his hearings earlier this year.
She previously told of her fears that he would be murdered by Mexican prison guards while in their custody.
His capture in 2016 came after a now famous interview with American actor Sean Penn and Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo who visited him in the Sinaloa mountains at one of his safe houses while he was still on the run.
Their meeting was the subject of a recent Netflix documentary in which Del Castillo, 40, told how she fell in love with Penn while they worked together to meet Chapo and was devastated when he betrayed her to write an article about it for Rolling Stone.
The drug baron is being held in special conditions at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in downtown Manhattan where he is not allowed outside and is in solitary confinement
The drug lord, whose real name is Joaquin Guzmán Loera, was recaptured in Mexico in January 2016 (above) six months after escaping from prison for the second time
Guzman operated the Sinaloa cartel for decades, evading capture by the country’s law enforcement, and became a hero for local communities who saw him as a Robin Hood figure who looked out for them more than their government did.
He was first incarcerated in the 1990s. In 2001, he bribed guards in a prison in Jalisco to help him escape.
El Chapo then spent more than a decade on the run before being recaptured in 2014.
He was only in bars for another year then escaped for a second time to the humiliation of Mexican authorities in July 2015.
By the time of his second escape, he had already struck up a rapport with telenovela actress Kate Del Castillo.
Once out on the run, El Chapo’s lawyers contacted her and asked if she would like to meet him to make a movie about his life.
They signed over the rights to her as a show of good faith.
El Chapo escaped from the Almoloya prison in Mexico in July 2015 through a hole in his shower which led to an underground tunnel
While on the run, he met with Sean Penn and Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo at a safe house. Penn wrote a Rolling Stone article about the meeting and Castillo planned to make a movie about his life, with his permission. Days after this photograph was taken, a raid on the property days later caused him to flee again. It is thought the pair were under surveillnce by Mexican officials
In January 2016, five months after breaking out of prison and three months after his meeting with Penn and Del Castillo, El Chapo was captured at this house in Los Michos
Del Castillo, eager to find success in Hollywood, brought Sean Penn in on the venture and the pair traveled to Sinaloa to meet with El Chapo in October 2015.
They were being monitored by the Mexican government at the time and days later, a SWAT team went to the location where they had met to try to find him but he escaped.
In the recently released Netflix documentary, The Day I Met El Chapo, Castillo tells how Penn blindsided her during the meeting by asking El Chapo for an interview for Rolling Stone.
He then appeared in an extraordinary video at Penn’s behest to prove he was alive and that their correspondence was genuine.
Before Rolling Stone published the piece, Chapo was recaptured in another location. Five men died in the shoot-out.
Officials have since spoken anonymously to say intelligence honed in on the safe house by monitoring the construction of a tunnel there in the days before he arrived.
On the night of his capture, they said a large taco order to the address gave them reason to believe he was there.
Penn insists he never tipped off authorities about his meeting and tried to block the Netflix documentary for coming out because he felt it suggested he was complicit.
Despite the fact that El Chapo was ultimately captured at a house which neither Penn nor Castillo ever visited, Mexican authorities said their meeting and correspondence with him and his associated helped them.