Mexican drug lord El Chapo has his life sentence appeal REJECTED by US judge: 66-year-old set to remain in 23hr per day solitary confinement in Colorado supermax prison dubbed the ‘Alcatraz of the Rockies’

A judge in New York City on Wednesday denied a request by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to review the 2019 ruling that sentenced him to life in prison.

The 66-year-old Guzman led the powerful Sinaloa cartel for decades, which is blamed for thousands of deaths in Mexico. He escaped from Mexican prisons twice and was eventually captured and transferred to the United States in January 2017.

The Mexican drug lord had filed habeas corpus petitions – civil lawsuits used to assess whether a prison sentence is lawful – and asked for legal representation in the appeal.

But Judge Brian Cogan, of the Eastern District of New York – who presided over his high-profile trial in Brooklyn – denied the request.

“This was perhaps the most infamous criminal prosecution of the decade, and the charges on which petitioner was convicted could well have resulted in the death penalty if conditions had not been placed on his extradition,” Cogan wrote in the ruling denying the petition .

The ruling rejects arguments that Guzman's defense did not adequately investigate a settlement and cites sealed evidence showing Guzman still controls billions of dollars in assets, even if they are not in his own name.

Guzman meets actor Sean Penn. Penn went to interview him for Rolling Stone magazine

Cogan denied the request for legal advice, saying Guzman already had help from Mariel Colon Miro, a lawyer who represented Guzman and his wife Emma Coronel in recent years.

Coronel was sentenced to three years in a California prison in November 2021 for drug trafficking and money laundering.

She was released in mid-September; the 34-year-old celebrated her freedom during a Los Angeles nightclub visit that was plastered all over social media, with a party hosted by Colon Miro.

Coronel, a former teenage beauty pageant queen in Mexico and mother of Guzman's twin daughters, was released into court supervision.

Cogan also questioned where Guzman got the money to pay his lawyers and why his wife – who was released from prison in September – has not had access to his assets.

Guzman is serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” where inmates are held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.

Guzman is currently in a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado

Guzman has escaped from Mexican prisons twice and is now in America's toughest prison

Emma Coronel (right), wife of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, poses with her lawyer, Mariel Colón, who performed as a Mexican regional soloist at an event in Los Angeles just two days after being released from federal custody

Mariel Colón, who was part of the defense team that represented Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and his wife Emma Coronel in a separate trial, performs at a Los Angeles show celebrating Mexico's Independence Day

Emma Coronel (second from right) starts her life over after her release from federal custody. She has completed 31 months of the 36-month sentence imposed in November 2021 by a federal court in Washington, DC. She will be seen in LA on September 15.

After twice escaping from high-security prisons in Mexico, including through a mile-long tunnel from his cell, Guzman was deported to the United States in 2017 and convicted of drug trafficking in 2019.

Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel remains one of the country's two most powerful criminal organizations, alongside its main rival, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

A powerful faction within the Sinaloa Cartel is now led by Guzman's four sons, one of whom has also been extradited to the United States.

Guzman's mother, María Consuelo Loera, died on December 10 at the age of 94 in Sinaloa.

In late November, the head of security for the Sinaloa Cartel, one of their top hitmen, was arrested.

Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, better known as 'El Nini', was captured in a walled compound in Culiacan, Mexico.

He was head of security for four of Guzman's sons – Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, Joaquin Guzman Lopez and Ovidio Guzman Lopez – known as the 'Chapitos'.

Ovidio was arrested in January 2023 and is currently in Chicago awaiting trial.