When pleading guilty in the United States to charges of conspiracy to distribute drugs, conspiracy to launder money and participate in financial deals with the Sinaloa Cartel, Emma Coronel Aispuro, wife of Joaquín el Chapo Guzmán, was sentenced to 36 months in prison in that country ; four years of supervised release and payment of $ 1.5 million.
During a hearing, one of the prosecutors in the case asked Judge Rudolph Contreras, of the Federal Court of Washington: “The defendant committed a serious crime against the United States.
“Given the adverse impact that drug trafficking has on society and the serious detrimental effects of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana on communities, it is important that the court impose a sentence that dissuades others from undermining the Rule of Law, ”he said.
However, the judge imposed on Coronel a sentence of less than the four years requested by the prosecution, because the defendant was a teenager when she married Guzmán, and that she also admitted her guilt after her arrest in February 2021.
The former beauty queen in Sinaloa admitted to having acted as a messenger for drug trafficking between Guzmán and other members of the Sinaloa Cartel, while her husband was held in the Altiplano federal prison after his second arrest in 2014.
Prosecutors argued that Guzmán Loera used communications with his wife to plan his escape from prison in 2015, through an underground tunnel built by members of the Cartel.
“With all due respect, I am writing to you today to express my true regret for any damage I may have caused and I ask you, all the citizens of this country, to forgive me,” said Coronel at the hearing.
Also, prior to her sentencing, she implored the judge not to sentence her to prison for her 10-year-old twin daughters who were born at the Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, in Los Angeles, California: “they were already growing up without one of their parents. That is why I beg you not to allow them to grow up without their mother as well, ”he said.
Collaboration
Speaking to reporters outside of court, Coronel’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, denied that his client had cooperated with drug trafficking investigations, reports that he said exposed her to the risk of retaliation.
Lichtman stressed that since Coronel had no criminal record and was quick to admit guilt, avoiding trial, legal guidelines stipulated a relatively short prison term.
“There was no need to cooperate,” he said. “He will be released from jail in 18 months,” he anticipated.
But drug trafficking experts assumed that Coronel helped US authorities.
“It is very clear that she collaborated, which is not surprising,” Michael Lettieri, who leads the Resources Project against Violence in Mexico, affiliated with the University of California, San Diego, told AFP.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx