Almost immediately after a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán on all 10 counts of his indictment, the Sinaloa cartel leader’s lawyers vowed to appeal the unanimous guilty verdict. Now they have formally told the judge they plan to seek a new trial, citing a report from VICE News about alleged juror misconduct as the basis for the request.

In a letter sent Friday to Judge Brian Cogan, El Chapo’s defense team asked for additional time to prepare as they make the case for a new trial. The letter characterizes the Feb. 20 VICE News article as stating “that multiple jurors engaged in misconduct by intentionally violating the Court’s direction” to avoid media coverage of the trial and not to communicate with one another about the trial prior to deliberations.

…

Suzanne Luban, an expert on post-conviction issues at Stanford Law School, said the court “will be obligated to hold a hearing where the jurors will be questioned one at a time with both lawyers present, in a closed proceeding.”

“If the judge believes that even one juror read a news article that contained prejudicial information, by a preponderance of the evidence (simply 51 percent), the judge will order a new trial,” Luban said.

…

Luban noted that a retrial for Chapo could be held outside of New York City.

“It will be very difficult to find an impartial jury to retry El Chapo,” Luban said. “If the conviction is overturned due to juror misconduct, which is likely, his attorneys will likely move for a change of venue.”