Court documents revealed for the first time last week say Guzman paid an associate $5,000 for each girl, and called the youngest among them his “vitamins”, as they gave him “life”.
The allegations are made by a person referred to in the documents as “cooperating witness No 1”, understood to be Alex Cifuentes – one of Guzman’s former close associates and who testified that the drug baron boasted of paying former Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto a bribe of $100m.
Cifuentes said a person named “Commadre Maria”, sent photographs of underage girls to Guzman, so he could select them and they would be taken to one of his ranches in Sinaloa on the west coast of Mexico.
The release of the documents which reveal the alleged sex lives and also beliefs in alternative medicine among gang members, come as the jury in New York are beginning deliberations after Guzman’s two-month trial.
One of Guzmán’s lawyers described the rape allegations as “extremely salacious”, and questioned the timing of the documents’ release.
The details had remained hidden during the trial as prosecutors did not believe they were relevant to Guzman’s drug trafficking charges, according to The Washington Post.
But the documents were unsealed following letters from media organisations including The New York Times and Vice News complaining about the opacity of the trial.
Prosecutors said there was no longer a requirement to keep the documents secret because the identities of cooperating witnesses mentioned in the records have been made public.
The documents also reveal Cifuentes beliefs and his relationship with Guzmán. Cifuentes said he lived with Guzman from 2007 – 2008, and they had both raped underage girls. He told officials he had helped Guzman drug some of the girls.
Intercepted phone calls revealed Cifuentes bought snake oil from witch doctors, and had interests in the Illuminati, Freemasonry and UFOs, the documents say.
Guzman “denies the allegations, which lack any corroboration and were deemed too prejudicial and unreliable to be admitted at trial”, his attorney Eduardo Balarezo said in a statement.
He added: “It is unfortunate that the material was publicly released just prior to the jury beginning deliberations.”
Guzman is charged with heading a drug smuggling empire which flooded the US with hundreds of tonnes of cocaine and made $14bn. He faces life in prison.
The Independent
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