'El Chapo' son pleads guilty, agrees to help feds to avoid life sentence
A son of the notorious Sinaloa drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera agreed in a Chicago federal courtroom Friday to cooperate with U.S. authorities across the nation — and to do so with a life prison sentence hanging over his head.
Ovidio Guzman Lopez, 35, wore an orange jumpsuit and glasses when he appeared amid high security in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman at the downtown Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
Four U.S. Marshals stood nearby as Guzman Lopez admitted that he and his brothers — known as the Chapitos — inherited control of the international drug cartel from their father, who is now serving a life prison sentence in the so-called supermax prison in Colorado.
Guzman Lopez pleaded guilty to two drug trafficking conspiracy counts, as well as two counts of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. He did so in a bid to resolve federal charges that had been leveled against him in Chicago and Manhattan, pursuant to a 36-page plea deal.
Along the way, Guzman Lopez admitted that he used brutal violence to help control the cartel once led by his father. He admitted to his role in three murders that took place in 2018 and 2021.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Erskine explained in court that two counts carry a mandatory life sentence. However, he also said the plea deal would allow for Guzman Lopez to possibly be sentenced to a prison term of less than life if he holds up his end of the bargain.
It’ll be up to prosecutors to decide whether Guzman Lopez should have that opportunity. For now, his sentencing is on hold.
After Friday’s hearing, defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman told reporters he trusts the prosecutors who are currently handling the case.
“These Chicago prosecutors, and the ones from [Washington] D.C., San Diego, have been completely straight and fair,” he said.
The plea agreement calls for Ovidio Guzman to cooperate with federal prosecutors in Chicago, the Southern District of California and the Southern District of New York. He is also required to cooperate with the Justice Department’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section.
Coleman used Friday’s hearing to walk Guzman Lopez through the many fine points of his deal, including the cooperation provision.
But when he first arrived in her courtroom, the judge simply asked Guzman Lopez how he was feeling.
“Bien,” he replied — meaning “good.”
Guzman Lopez answered the rest of the judge’s questions in Spanish as well, with help from a translator interpreting in the courtroom. Sporting a beard, Guzman Lopez also wore headphones to help with the translation.
In his plea agreement, Guzman Lopez admitted to many of the allegations in a 2023 indictment of him and his brothers: Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar and Joaquin Guzman Lopez.
Joaquin Guzman Lopez is in custody and next due in court Sept. 15.
Lichtman also represents Ovidio Guzman Lopez’s brothers, a conflict waived by Ovidio Guzman Lopez in the plea agreement.
When the Chapitos were charged in 2023, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland decried “the largest, most violent and most prolific fentanyl-trafficking operation in the world — run by the Sinaloa cartel and fueled by Chinese precursor chemical and pharmaceutical companies.”
The brothers were accused of torturing their enemies by electrocuting them, waterboarding them and feeding them alive to tigers that authorities said Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar and Jesus Guzman Salazar kept on ranches as pets.
Ovidio Guzman Lopez admitted Friday his involvement in the Battle of Culiacan in the Sinaloa cartel’s stronghold in Mexico where, on Oct. 17, 2019, about 700 armed cartel members attacked government and military targets.
He also acknowledged that he and his brothers coordinated the shipment of drugs — including cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana — from countries in Central America and South America to Mexico and then into the United States and Chicago.
The cartel moved drugs using aircraft, submarines, boats, railcars and tunnels, according to the plea deal.
Ovidio Guzman Lopez admitted playing a role in the murders of Jesus Antonio Munoz Parra in December 2018 in Mexico; of Mario Nungaray Bobadilla in May 2021 in Phoenix; and Geovanni Hurtado Vicente in October 2021 in Mexico.
The Chapitos’ cartel is also considered the major supplier of fentanyl to the United States. The drug — a deadly scourge on Chicago's streets since 2005 — is mixed into counterfeit pills purporting to be OxyContin or other prescription drugs and also is blended with heroin and other drugs to be snorted or injected.
This year, Drug Enforcement Administration agents in the Chicago office have seized more than 1.6 million pills containing fentanyl — compared with about 600,000 pills in all of 2024, 405,000 in 2023 and about 65,000 in 2022.
Contributing: Frank Main