El Chapo Sends Handwritten Note to Judge With Desperate Plea From Isolation in Federal Supermax Jail, Claims U.S. Won't Let Him Speak to Lawyers
El Chapo is claiming officials at ADX Florence prison have not allowed him to speak to his lawyer.
Aug. 6 2025, Published 5:30 p.m. ET
El Chapo has sent a handwritten note to the judge who presided over his case from his isolation cell inside the maximum-security ADX Florence prison in Colorado, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
In his note to Judge Brian Cogan, the notorious drug cartel leader, real name Joaquin Guzmán Loera, claims the U.S. has not allowed him to contact his new attorney, José Israel Encinosa.
A Convicted Drug Dealer's Plea
El Chapo hasn't been allowed to speak to his lawyer in weeks, according to the drug dealer.
El Chapo, who is in solitary confinement 23 hours per day, claimed in his letter that it has been at least three weeks since he has been in contact with his legal team.
The former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel also claimed Encinosa has failed to get permission to visit him in prison for the past 10 months, and two letters sent by the lawyer were never delivered.
The convicted drug dealer wrote it is "vital" to him to be able to freely contact his attorney.
"The lawyer wrote to me several weeks ago, but to this day, I haven't received the two letters that Attorney Encinosa wrote to me," El Chapo said in this letter, which was written in Spanish but has been translated into English.
El Chapo's handwritten letter claimed his lawyer has not been given permission to visit him.
He continued: "The lawyer has been fighting for about 10 months to get the government’s permission to visit me and speak to me on the phone. I thought that now that you ordered them to authorize Attorney Encinosa to visit me and speak to me on the phone, but to this day, the lawyer hasn’t been authorized to do so."
El Chapo's lead attorney, Mariel Colón, has been the only person granted permission to visit him in recent months, due to security concerns, as even his wife, Emma Coronel, and his twin daughters have been forbidden from seeing the criminal.
The 68-year-old was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for various drug trafficking offenses. He remains one of the most dangerous drug dealers ever, as he was suspected to be responsible for the murders of an estimated 34,000 people.
El Chapo And His Spies
The 68-year-old is serving life behind bars.
Earlier this year, a bombshell report from the Department of Justice inspector general detailed how El Chapo's cartel hired a hacker to spy on US agents and their sources in 2018.
The hacker managed to break into Mexico City's CCTV network and tapped an agent’s cell phone. The information was used to zero in on an FBI assistant legal attaché (ALAT) who was working on the agency’s case against El Chapo.
According to the audit, the hacker was said to be able to "see calls made and received" by the FBI official, including their geolocation data. CCTV footage was also used to follow their movements and collect information on who they were meeting in the city.
The hacker "observed people going in and out of the United States Embassy in Mexico City and identified 'people of interest' for the cartel, including an FBI assistant legal attaché."
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The convicted drug dealer is serving his sentence at the maximum-security ADX Florence prison in Colorado.
The report noted the agency was working on a "strategic plan" to address concerns and its response to the data breach.
