UPDATED June 10, 12:39 p.m. ET: On Thursday, Emma Coronel Aispuro pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and money laundering charges. Wearing a green prison uniform and white face covering, she told US District Judge Rudolph Contreras that she understood and accepted her plea agreement.
Her attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said, she hoped to some day get back to her young twin daughters.
“This is an arm’s length plea agreement,” Lichtman said. “She’s happy to take responsibility … to get on with her life.”
See original story from 6/9/21 below.
The wife of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is expected to plead guilty this week to federal charges stemming from her alleged assistance in helping him run the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel.
The New York Times reports Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, is scheduled to enter the plea as part of an agreement with prosecutors in federal court in Washington, DC, on Thursday. Her plea agreement will not require her to cooperate with U.S. authorities or provide information about her husband’s allies, business partners or relatives, according to the Times.
The decision comes four months after Aispuro was arrested on international drug trafficking charges at Virginia’s Dulles International Airport.
Aispuro has been charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana in the U.S. The Justice Department has also accused her of helping her husband in a 2015 escape from a Mexican prison, and planning to help him escape from another prison in January 2017 before he could be extradited to America.
Although a guilty plea could help reduce her sentence, Aispuro faces charges that carry a maximum of life in prison.
El Chapo, 63, who trafficked vast amounts of cocaine, meth and other drugs as the head of the murderous cartel, was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years in February 2019. He is currently serving his time at the highest-security prison in the United States, the ADX federal prison in Florence, Colorado.
