Ovidio Guzmán López is still gaining time in the United States. The intermediate hearing of Joaquín’s son El Chapo Guzmán, scheduled for this Friday in federal court in Chicago, has been postponed again. The new schedule sets the appearance for July 10, a delay of five months in the process.
The hearing is part of the final stretch of the trial against the powerful drug heir, capable of subduing the Mexican army for years, who pleaded guilty in mid-2025 to drug trafficking and organized crimes. During the postponed hearing, the Court will have to define the date on which its final sentence will be pronounced.
The mouseas he was known within the Sinaloa Cartel, signed his plea deal last July in Illinois Northern District Court. In the document, he accepts two charges of drug trafficking and two more serious charges of participating in an ongoing criminal enterprise, crimes for which the minimum sentence includes life in prison. The agreement with the United States, however, opens the door to a reduction in sentence if their cooperation is deemed “substantial”.
During the hearing in July last year, Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman repeatedly pressed Guzmán López to ensure he understood the scope of his confession. Johnson Coleman asked him four times if he was aware of what he was admitting and if the medication he was taking for depression could influence his decision. He even recommended that she discuss it in depth with her lawyer before confirming the agreement.
Despite these warnings, Guzmán, 35, pleaded guilty and became the first member of the Guzmán family to formally agree with the United States government. Since then, his case has progressed at a pace marked by postponements and negotiations, while the prosecution assesses the value of the information and testimony he can provide.
This new delay prolongs the uncertainty over the legal outcome of one of the most emblematic figures of Mexican drug trafficking. Meanwhile, the son of Chapo admits participating in the kidnapping and murder of three men, known under the aliases Montana, Liebre and Amigo, in Sinaloa, Arizona and Sonora. He admits to having coordinated the transport of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and chemical precursors from Mexico to the United States, sometimes in batches of several hundred or thousands of kilograms. He confirms having used wagons, tunnels and even planes to smuggle drugs across the border. He admits to having transported cash “in bulk”, but that he also used transfers and cryptocurrencies; who carried out “acts of violence against law enforcement officials, civilians, and rival drug traffickers in order to protect the cartel’s drug trafficking activities.” He confirms that he and his brothers Joaquín, Iván Archivaldo and Alfredo Guzmán assumed leadership of the Sinaloa cartel after their father’s last arrest.
With this declaration, Ovidio Guzmán waived his right to a trial, his presumption of innocence and opened a cascade of consequences on both sides of the border.
