Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzmán aka El Chapo, has been sentenced to three years in prison. The US-born former beauty queen was arrested in February, at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, for her role in helping her husband's Sinaloa cartel.
The 32-year-old had pleaded guilty to money laundering and helping her husband's cartel traffic heroin, meth and cocaine in June and could have faced over 10 years in prison.
Why Did She Receive A Lighter Sentence?
Because she had no criminal record and expressed remorse over her actions, her prosecutors had asked the sentence to be reduced to four years.
"I express my true regrets for any and all harm that I may have done and I ask that you and all the citizens of this country forgive me," Coronel Aispuro said in Spanish through an interpreter before the sentencing.
"I am suffering as a result of the pain that I caused my family, she added, reported DW. She had also requested a sentence that would allow her to watch her 9-year-old twins grow up.
According to authorities, Aispuro played a critical role in helping Guzmán escape prison in 2015 by purchasing a property near the site, reports BBC.
She received a lighter sentence as she was not directly involved in any violent acts. However, she has been asked to pay $1.5 million in a restitution deal agreed before the hearing. The nine months already spent behind bars since her arrest will be credited to her sentence.
The former beauty queen had married El Chapo when she was just eighteen. The defence attorney also argued Aispuro was from an impoverished family who got married to a powerful man, three decades older than her, at a very impressionable age.
After escaping prison in 2015, Joaquin Guzmán was recaptured in January 2016 and extradited to the United States a year later. In February 2019, he was convicted of drug trafficking, murder, conspiracy, and kidnapping, besides other charges, and was later sentenced to life in prison.
