FEMME FATALE

El Chapo’s Wife Slated to Plead Guilty to Running Drug Cartel: Report

Emma Coronel Aispuro, a former beauty queen, sat atop the Sinaloa cartel with her husband and helped plan his escape from prison.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, wife of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, is expected to plead guilty to helping her husband run his multinational drug empire, The New York Times reports. Coronel, a 31-year-old former beauty queen and El Chapo’s third wife, is scheduled to appear in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday and enter a guilty plea to conspiracy charges. She was arrested earlier this year. Coronel and Guzman sat atop the Sinaloa cartel before his arrest, imprisonment, escape, recapture, and conviction. Coronel, whose own father worked for El Chapo, reportedly helped orchestrate the jailbreak. According to the Times, her plea agreement does not obligate her to cooperate in the government’s investigation, and it designates her a “minimal participant” in Guzman’s crimes, which will likely result in less time than the 10-year sentence her initial charge carried.