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The wife of imprisoned and former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is set to be released in California on Wednesday following her 2021 sentencing on drug trafficking charges, reports say.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons says 34-year-old Emma Coronel Aispuro will walk out of a low-security facility in Los Angeles but remains under 48 months of supervised release, according to Reuters.
Guzman, meanwhile, was convicted in New York on Feb. 12, 2019, of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation. He was sentenced to life in prison in July of that year and remains held at ADX Florence in Colorado, known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies.
Coronel, a former beauty queen, pleaded guilty years ago to three counts of conspiring to distribute cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana illegally imported into the United States, conspiring to launder drug money from the cartel and engaging in financial dealings with the cartel.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of "El Chapo," departs the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse after his trial in New York in February 2019. (Reuters/Brendan McDermid)
Court documents said Coronel was assisting her husband’s cartel with its drug distribution process while he was imprisoned.
"The defendant's actual role was a minimal one," prosecutor Anthony Nardozzi said in 2021. "The defendant acted primarily in support of her husband. The defendant acted upon his orders, which, in turn, furthered the interests of the criminal cartel. The defendant was not an organizer, leader, boss or other type of manager. Rather, she was a cog in a very large wheel of a criminal organization."
Because Coronel had no prior criminal convictions, she was able to avoid a minimum 10-year sentence for her crimes.
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Emma Coronel Aispuro poses for a mug shot after being booked at Alexandria Adult Detention Center on February 22, 2021 in Alexandria, Virginia. (Alexandria Sheriff’s Office via Getty Images)
Coronel, who has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Mexico, and Guzman were married in 2007 when she was 18. The couple has two twin daughters together.
The Sinaloa cartel – one of the world’s largest drug-trafficking organizations under Guzman's leadership – was responsible for multiple murders and smuggling mountains of cocaine and other drugs into the United States during Guzman’s 25-year reign, prosecutors previously said in court papers.
Authorities escort Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, center, from a plane in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. (U.S. law enforcement via AP)
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Fox News Digital has reached out to the Bureau of Prisons for further comment.
Fox News’ Audrey Conklin and Stephanie Pagones contributed to this report.
