El Chapo, Losing 'Sanity' In NYC Jail Cell, Can At Least Send Sexy Letters To His Wife Now

LOWER MANHATTAN, NY — Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, 59, the legendary Mexican cocaine kingpin currently being tried in Brooklyn federal court for an alleged decades-long career in cross-border drug trafficking, has been complaining (via a rotating team of public defenders) about his U.S. prison experience ever since he was extradited to NYC in January.

UPDATE: El Chapo Must Wait Another Year In Solitary Confinement Before NYC Trial Begins, Judge Says

Held for 23 hours per day in a "small, windowless cell" in the 10 South wing of the notoriously tough Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan — normally reserved for terrorism suspects — Guzman has slowly been losing his "sanity," his lawyers say.

He has even begun "experiencing auditory hallucinations."

So El Chapo's legal team filed a motion in March, arguing he should be spared from "the evils of prolonged solitary confinement" at the MCC.

The Manhattan jail is "far more extreme," they said, than any of the Mexican facilities where El Chapo served time.

Lawyers also asked that the Sinaloa Cartel boss be allowed to talk to his wife, ex-beauty queen Emma Coronel Aispuro, 27, about hiring private counsel, and that human-rights experts from Amnesty International be allowed to inspect the conditions under which he's being held.

Nearly two months later, U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan has issued his response.

Cogan ruled Thursday that the 10 South wing of the MCC is the only place equipped to hold a serial prison-breaker of El Chapo's stature, especially given his "widely publicized second escape from a Mexican maximum-security facility under 24-hour video surveillance."

The judge also found "absolutely no reason" for Amnesty International to assess El Chapo's living situation — "other than further sensationalize an already sensationalized case."

But Judge Cogan did throw a couple conciliatory bones to the fallen kingpin in his ruling.

While his wife, pictured below, still won't be allowed to come talk to him face-to-face, El Chapo can now "send letter messages to his wife," the judge ruled — and their subject matter "need not be limited solely to the retention of counsel."

"If defendant would like to send his wife and infant children a personal message or they would like to send those messages to him, this can happen," Cogan wrote.

(The lovebirds may not want to wax TOO personal, though, as their letters will be subject to "pre-screening" by the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, U.S. Marshal and prison officials.)

"We're extremely disappointed that Mr. Guzman and his wife will not be able to see or speak to each other," El Chapo's lawyers said in a response sent to Patch. "This is devastating news for both of them."

However, they said, "there is some small comfort that the judge granted permission for Mr. Guzman and his wife to exchange personal letters."

El Chapo is accused of employing an extensive network of dealers, runners, spies and hitmen across more than a dozen countries to bring around 200 metric tons of cocaine into the U.S. from the 1980s through the 2000s — much of it produced in Columbia by other infamous cartels like Pablo Escobar's.

The morning after he was abruptly extradited overnight from Mexico to New York, Brooklyn's then-U.S. Attorney Robert Capers (canned shortly after by the Trump administration) held a theatrical press conference at the federal courthouse.

In the speech, included above, Capers called his new captive a “cancerous tumor” and "a man known for no other life but a life of crime, violence, death and destruction."

El Chapo's attorneys immediately questioned the legality of his sudden extradition and "orchestrated" arrival in the U.S., which they said tainted any hopes of an unbiased jury and fair trial. (Especially when coupled with the four — yes, four — different El Chapo biopics currently in development.)

But in the months since, his legal team has focused more on an issue that human-rights orgs have been trying to call attention to for years: conditions at the two U.S. Bureau of Prisons facilities in NYC.

In solitary confinement at the MCC in Lower Manhattan, El Chapo's lawyers wrote that:

"His meals are passed through a slot in the door; he eats alone. The light is always on. With erratic air-conditioning, he has often lacked enough warm clothing to avoid shivering. Repeated requests by counsel to have the MCC adjust the temperature have landed on deaf ears. He never goes outside. His only opportunity to see daylight is when he passes a small window on the way to his counsel visit or the exercise cell. Although he purchased a small clock from the commissary, it was later removed from his cell without explanation. Without a window or access to natural light, the clock was the only way for Mr. Guzman to distinguish day from night."

But he's not the first dude to go nuts in 10 South. The wing has been called a "hellhole," a "Guantánamo in New York" and the worst in America. In fact, one prisoner in solitary confinement at the MCC said he found Guantánamo to be “more pleasant” and “more relaxed" by comparison. Other inmates and their attorneys recently told The Intercept that the prison's extreme isolation tactics and omnipresent monitoring can make inmates so insane, they'll admit to almost anything.

In a 2011 report, Amnesty International said conditions at 10 South amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" that was "incompatible with the presumption of innocence in the case of untried prisoners whose detention should not be a form of punishment.”

In response to Judge Capers' decision Thursday to bar Amnesty International from visiting El Chapo, the org's head of communications, Eric Ferrero, said:

“Amnesty International has fought for over 15 years to gain access to this prison facility based on serious human rights concerns, and we will continue our critical work at this facility and others like it.”

And El Chapo's public defenders, for their part, said Thursday that they "continue to believe" his stay in 10 South is "untenable, especially over the time that it will take for this case to go to trial." They said they won't stop trying to get him out of solitary confinement "while he awaits his chance to confront the government's allegations in court." (El Chapo will reportedly be making his next trip across the East River to appear in court this Friday.)

In their original motion, his legal team also pointed to brutal conditions and lack of oversight at NYC's other federal prison: the equally notorious Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, pictured below.

After visiting the women's ward of the MDC in summer 2016, members of the National Association of Women Judges said they found "the absence of fresh, clean air, the complete absence of sunlight, and the absence of ANY outdoor time and activities" at the prison to be "unconscionable."

Another judge said the MDC wasn't fit for any "civilized country."

Now, "Mr. Guzman is suffering under the very same conditions of confinement," his lawyers argue.

Judge Capers isn't buying that one. "Attempts to draw comparisons to recent publicity about the conditions of the women’s detention area at the Metropolitan Detention Center are inapposite," he wrote Thursday.

"Although the Court has a responsibility to protect inmates from cruel and unusual conditions, [El Chapo's] current confinement does not raise those issues," Capers wrote.

Funny that it took the snivels of the world's most-wanted cartel boss to bring the city's own backyard Guantánamos back into the public consciousness.

Photos courtesy of Getty Images