Alfredo Vasquez-Hernandez, El Chapo's reputed cartel lieutenant, sentenced to 22 years

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A judge has sentenced a man that federal agents say helped bring more than 600 pounds of cocaine into Chicago to 22 years in prison.

Prosecutors say he was a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa drug cartel. But on Monday, his son told a different story.

"He's not the monster that everyone is saying that he is," said Gabriel Vasquez.

How does half-a-million-dollars-worth of cocaine make it from Mexico to Chicago? By way of Alfredo Vasquez-Hernandez, who claims to haven never been to Chicago before his arrest.

"The brothers that told on my father are basically taking the blame out of them and putting the responsibility on my father when in reality it's not true at all," said Vasquez.

"This is not a case that can be tried on innuendos. It's based on liars like the Margarito brothers," defense attorney Arturo Hernandez said.

Hernandez' attorney claims his client was a realtor in Gaudalajara who did one bad deal with two brothers - brothers who, prosecutors say, ran the Chicago-branch of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's empire. El Chapo himself was arrested earlier this year.

As the I-Team first reported, the feds say Hernandez was the logistics man of a cartel that used submarines, fishing boats, trains, trucks, and even a Boeing 747 to bring cocaine and heroin into the U.S. But Chief U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo said prosecutors didn't prove the cartel connection. In court, he told the defendant: "It's hard to determine who you really are. Two-hundred and seventy-six kilos of cocaine heading to Chicago? That's a major shipment. I can't sit here and think for a second that this was the first time you did this."

So why the near-maximum sentence? The judge said it was meant to send a message.

"It's not the judge's job to send a political message to any country. Come on! He's a legal mind, not a politician. He was playing politics today as far as I'm concerned," Hernandez said.

Vasquez-Hernandez' attorneys once told a judge their client feared for his life in jail if members of El Chapo's crew thought he was ratting the boss out. With this guilty plea - and no apparent cooperation - they tell me they're no longer concerned for his safety.