'El Mayo' Zambada willing to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty

Mexican drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada is willing to plead guilty in a deal with U.S. prosecutors if it exempts him from facing the death penalty , his lawyer told Reuters on Monday.

In September, Zambada pleaded not guilty in federal court in New York to 17 felony charges, including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons possession . He is currently in prison awaiting trial.

"Mr Zambada does not want to go to trial and is willing to accept responsibility for a charge that does not carry the death penalty," lawyer Frank Perez told Reuters.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, which filed the charges, declined to comment.

Zambada, who is in his 70s, was taken into U.S. custody last July at a New Mexico airfield along with one of Guzman's sons, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, in a major blow to U.S. law enforcement.

jcp