Emma Coronel Aispuro, 32, asked U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras to grant her mercy before her sentence in federal court in Washington.
“With all due respect,” she stated via an interpreter, “I address you today to express my true regret for any and all harm that I may have done, and I ask that you and all the citizens of this country forgive me.”
She also expressed concern that because she is Guzman’s wife, the judge might find it difficult to pardon her. “Perhaps for this reason you feel there is a need for you to be harder on me, but I pray that you not do that,”
In June, Coronel pled guilty to three charges of conspiracy to distribute illicit narcotics, money laundering, and financial ties with the Sinaloa drug gang. On Tuesday, federal prosecutors requested that Coronel be sentenced to four years in jail and that she forfeit $1.5 million as part of her punishment.
“While the overall effect of the defendant’s conduct was significant, the defendant’s actual role was a minimal one. “The defendant acted primarily in support of her husband. According to federal prosecutor Anthony Nardozzi,
He said she “quickly accepted responsibility for her criminal conduct” following her detention.
Coronel, a former beauty queen from the United States who married Guzman while she was a teenager, was captured in February at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington. She and Guzman are the parents of nine-year-old twin daughters.
As part of her plea deal with prosecutors, Coronel agreed to serve as a courier between Guzman and other Sinaloa cartel members while incarcerated in Mexico’s Altiplano jail following his 2014 arrest. Guzman used such contacts to plot his 2015 jail break, which included a tunnel dug by the cartel that led to his cell’s shower.
The drug lord was apprehended in January 2016 and extradited to the United States a year later. He was found guilty of drug trafficking, conspiracy, kidnapping, murder, and other offences in February 2019 and was sentenced to life in prison.
On Tuesday, Coronel’s lawyer emphasised that she was pulled into the world of drug trafficking as a youngster and deserved leniency.
She met Joaquin Guzman when she was a minor. She was 17 years old, and she married him on her 18th birthday, ” According to Jeffrey Lichtman, a defence attorney who also defended Guzman in his three-year-long U.S. trial,
According to Lichtman, Coronel is now in danger because unidentified law enforcement authorities notified the news media that she was collaborating with the government.
He said he was not sure if she could ever go back home.
Contreras said he considered her history while deciding on the sentence, as well as the fact that she will be the sole guardian of her children because her husband is serving a life term.
As the hearing came to a close, he told her, “Good luck to you.” “I hope you raise your twins in a different atmosphere from the one you’ve had thus far.”
