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Emma Coronel was sentenced to three years in prison Tuesday during a hearing at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled that Coronel has to pay $1.5 million in a restitution deal
U.S. federal prosecutors initially asked that the 32-year-old American be sentenced to four years
She pleaded guilty to drug-trafficking and money laundering in June
Coronel, who has nine-year-old twin daughters with El Chapo, was taken into custody at Dulles International Airport in February

Published: 11:35 EDT, 30 November 2021 | Updated: 17:15 EDT, 30 November 2021

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The former beauty queen wife of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday.

Emma Coronel's sentencing was one year below what U.S. federal prosecutors recommended earlier this month after she pleaded guilty in June to international drug trafficking, money laundering and violating the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel drug lord.

Coronel, 32, who gave birth to twin girls after marrying El Chapo when she was 18, could be released in about two years. She has been in federal custody since February 22 when she was arrested at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

'I hope you raise your twins in a different environment than you've experienced to date,' U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Rudolph Contreras said.

SEE VIDEO BELOW

Emma Coronel, the wife of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, was sentenced to three years in prison in a Washington, D.C. federal court Tuesday

Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán was sentenced to life in prison by a New York federal court in 2019. He is being held at the ADX Florence super maximum security facility in Colorado

Emma Coronel addresses the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday moments before she was sentenced to three years in prison. Because she has spent the last nine months behind bars following her February arrest in at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, the 32-year-old will be released in two years

Emma Coronel is pictured in her mug shot after her arrest

El Chapo was convicted on February 12, 2019, and is serving a life sentence at the ADX Florence super maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.

The California-born former beauty queen begged Contreras for leniency despite being the wife one on the world's most powerful and recognizable kingpins.

'Maybe that's why you feel the obligation to be a little harder on me. But I beg you not to,' Coronel said in court. 'Today the suffering that I have caused my family when facing this situation hurts me a lot. My parents instilled in me respect, gratitude and honesty but they also taught me to accept my mistakes and ask for forgiveness for them.'

Coronel has not been able to see the couple's nine-year-old twin daughters since her imprisonment due to visitation restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and asked Contreras to consider the separation as part of his sentencing decision.

'They were already growing up without one of their parents,' she said. 'That is why I beg you not to allow them to grow up without their mother, too.'

Coronel's sentencing includes four years of supervision following her release.

The judge said she would also have to pay $1.5 million in a restitution deal agreed to before the hearing.

Attorney Jeffrey Lichtman asked Contreras to show Coronel mercy and to consider that she was just 17 years old when she first met El Chapo in 2006 and married him a year later.

'The government in their wisdom thought she deserved a slightly small reduction from the guidelines and the judge felt she deserved a little bit more,' Lichtman said outside the court. 'I didn't ask for specific number. I left it up to the court's wisdom.'

It's unknown where Coronel will serve her sentence. Lichtman said it will be up to the Federal Bureau of Prison to determined where she will be incarcerated.

Univision reported that Coronel's defense asked that she be jailed in Los Angeles.

Coronel was looking at a much longer sentence, but prosecutors made the recommendation that she only be sentenced to four years, stressing that she had a low-level role with the notorious cartel, turned herself in and pleaded guilty to her crimes.

'While the overall effect of the defendant's conduct was significant, the defendant's actual role was a minimal one,' U.S. federal prosecutor Anthony Nardozzi said. 'The defendant acted primarily in support of her husband.'

Attorney Jeffrey Lichtman addresses reporters outside a Washington, D.C. federal court Tuesday after his client Emma Coronel, the wife of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán was sentenced to three years in prison. Because she been in custody for nine months, the 32-year-old U.S.-born mother of nine-year-old twin girls could be released in two years

Lichtman told the New York Post that was satisfied with the judge's final decision.

'We're pleased with the result and we're pleased with the court recognizing her very minimal role,' he said.

Lichtman had the impression that Coronel was not going be spend the rest of her life behind bars during an interview that aired on Noticias Telemundo on Monday.

'Part of me is happy that the government recognized her minimal role, part of me is very sad because she suffered greatly over the last year,' Lichtman said.

'Emma Coronel is not going away to jail for the rest of her life and she wasn't even going to jail for 10 years. She was a very minimal participant.'

Coronel pleaded guilty on June 10 to the federal charges of helping her drug lord husband.

The former beauty queen was looking at a lengthy jail sentence before her legal team sought the safety valve exception, which required Coronel to meet a series of guidelines that would reduce her sentence.

Under the exception, she would have had to prove she was not the 'leader, organizer, or supervisor in the commission of the offense' and that she can show she did not use 'violence in the commission of the offense, and the offense must not have resulted in serious injury.'

The safety valve exception also required Coronel to 'tell the government all that he knows of the offense and any related misconduct.'

It appeared she checked off each of the boxes.

Court records show that Coronel criminal activities initiated in or about 2011 and continued through at least January 19, 2017.

She conspired with El Chapo and Sinaloa Cartel members to traffic five or more kilos of cocaine, one or more kilos of heroin, 500 grams or more of methamphetamine, and 1,000 kilograms or more of marijuana, and that she was well aware that the drugs would be smuggled into the United States and distributed throughout the country.

Prosecutors also asked that Emma Coronel be sentenced to five years of supervised release and pay a $1.5 million fine, but the judge did not order her to make the payment due to uncertainties over whether she could comply

Emma Coronel was only 18 when she married a then 50-year-old Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán in 2007 and soon after gave birth to twin girls

As part of her plea agreement with prosecutors, Coronel admitted to acting as a courier between Guzmán and other members of the Sinaloa cartel while he was being held in Mexico's Altiplano prison following his February 2014 arrest.

Coronel bought property near the jail and gave Guzmán a watch that included a GPS tracking device which was used to help hired construction workers 'dig a tunnel from that nearby property, under the prison' to El Chapo's jail cell.

The drug lord escaped in July 2015 and was recaptured in January 2016. He was extradited one year later to the United States.

Inés Coronel, whose daughter Emma Coronel is married to Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, is serving 10 years and five months in a Mexico prison for illegal possession of firearms and smuggling drugs to the United States

Her father, Ines Coronel, a 53-year-old former high-ranking leader within the Sinaloa Cartel, was arrested April 30, 2013 at a home in the northern border town of Agua Prieta, Sonora, across from Douglas, Arizona. He was found guilty of illegal possession of firearms and smuggling drugs to the United States. Coronel was sentenced on April 28, 2017 to 10 years and five months in prison.

His daughter will not be placed in a witness protection program and will not cooperate with the federal prosecutors in any future investigations of the transnational drug trafficking organization that El Chapo co-founded and is now under the control of his four sons - Joaquín Guzmán López, Ovidio Guzmán López, Ivan Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, otherwise know as 'Los Chapitos' - and an old associate, Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada.

Mariel Colón, who also forms part of a defense team that also represented El Chapo, told Univision earlier this month that Coronel would not provide any information on the cartel to federal investigators because doing so would have exposed her daughters and family members.

'She has (her two) girls in Mexico and it is very well known what happens to cooperators or to the family of collaborators,' Colón said. 'Then why expose, risk the lives of her girls, the life of her family, when there is another resource that can help her and allow her to leave in the same time that she would have left if she had cooperate.'

The nine cartels that control the US drug market

Sinaloa Cartel

Founded in 1989 by Héctor Palma, Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán and Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, the Sinaloa Cartel today stands as one of the most established transnational drug trafficking organizations. While it has carved out a presence in 15 of the 32 Mexican states, the cartel also expanded its operations into the United States, Europe, Asia and South America.

With El Chapo in prison, the cartel has been plagued by internal fighting between Zambada and three of El Chapo's four sons, known as 'Los Chapitos'.

The Drug Enforcement Administration views the Sinaloa Cartel as one of the top two criminal organizations along with its rival, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

The DEA said the Sinaloa Cartel 'exports and distributes wholesale amounts of fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana in the United States by maintaining distribution hubs in various cities.'

How they get drugs into the US: 'Illicit drugs distributed by the Sinaloa Cartel are primarily smuggled into the United States through crossing points located along the [south west border]. The cartel employs gatekeepers assigned to Ports Of Entry and controls Arizona and California area smuggling corridors into the United States.'

Jalisco New Generation Cartel

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel was once allied to the Sinaloa Cartel as El Chapo depended on its firepower to combat Los Zetas.

Commandeered by Nemesio 'El Mencho' Oseguera, the group set itself apart from other cartels in the country butchering its enemies and today is considered by the Mexican government as the most dangerous group in the country.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is spread out across 23 of the Mexico's 32 states and currently finds itself at war with at least ten cartels.

The group has been known to have increased the power that its members have by purchasing military weapons and parts from the United States.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, according to the DEA, specializes 'in manufacturing and distributing large amounts of fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine.'

How they get drugs into the US: 'The CJNG smuggles illicit drugs into the United States by accessing various trafficking corridors in northern Mexico along the SWB including Tijuana, Juarez, and Nuevo Laredo. The CJNG also has influence over the busiest port in Mexico, the Port of Manzanillo, and utilizes that influence for the distribution of large quantities of drugs.'

Beltrán-Leyva Organization

For a while, the Beltrán-Leyva Organization [BLO] was born out of the Sinaloa Cartel and became one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico led by the Beltrán Leyva brothers: Marcos Arturo, Carlos, Alfredo, Mario Alberto and Héctor.

The Beltrán-Leyva Organization was involved in a deadly war with the Sinaloa Cartel after the brothers accused their cousin, El Chapo, of being responsible for the January 2008 arrest of Alfredo. The brothers retaliated by reportedly plotting the murder of El Chapo's 22-year-old son, Édgar Guzmán, in May 2008.

Alfredo's arrest sparked one of the worst periods in Mexico's war on drugs as the BLO's new ally, the Juaréz Cartel, went to war with the Sinaloa Cartel in Ciudad Juaréz, a border town across from Texas.

The BLO also expanded its might by going toe-to-toe with the Gulf Cartel, Sinaloa Cartel and La Familia Cartel in the northeastern border city of Reynosa.

While the cartel remains viable today, the organization's members over time split into 11 factions.

How they get drugs into the US: 'BLO relies on its loose alliances with larger cartels for access to drug smuggling corridors along the [south west border].'

Los Zetas and the Cartel del Noreste [Northeast Cartel]

Los Zetas were created by Mexican military deserters who formed an alliance with the Gulf Cartel in 1999 and based its operations in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, across from Laredo, Texas. The group quickly carved out a named for itself through its savage killings. By 2010, Los Zetas split from the Gulf Cartel.

Los Zetas at one point dominated more cities across Mexico than the Sinaloa Cartel, with whom it clashed amidst a threat from the Gulf Cartel to eliminate it completely.

Like some of the other Mexican cartels, Los Zetas saw some of its members split and form their own groups.

Los Zetas role play in the drug trade is enforced by one of its factions, the Cartel del Noreste [Northeast Cartel]. Together, the criminal groups have set up its small, but lucrative, drug trade business into the Texas border cities of Laredo and Eagle Pass while controlling routes and turfs in the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Coahuila, San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas.

How they get drugs into the US: 'Members smuggle the majority of their illicit drugs through the [south west border] in the areas of Laredo, Texas; Eagle Pass, Texas; and the Mexican states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and parts of Tamaulipas.'

Guerrero Unidos

Operating in central Mexico, the Guerrero Unidos broke away from the Beltrán-Leyva Organization and formed an alliance with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel to traffic drugs into the United States and bring back its profits into Mexico.

The cartel is accused of being behind the September 2014 disappearance of 43 students, who were kidnapped by local police in Iguala, a city in the southern state of Guerrero.

How they get drugs into the US: 'The cartel has a working partnership with the CJNG and uses the same transportation networks to move drug shipments into the United States and to return drug proceeds back to Mexico.'

Gulf Cartel

The Gulf Cartel is considered to be one of the oldest active criminal organizations in Mexico and is believed to have close ties to other gangs in Europe, West Africa, Asia, Central America, South America, and the United States.

The organization started off by smuggling alcohol into the United States during the Prohibition Era. It was not until the 1980 that it got itself immersed into the drug trade.

The DEA believes the Gulf Cartel has been working closely with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel as it ships heroin and cocaine to the Texas border cities of McAllen and Brownsville.

How they get drugs into the US: 'The Gulf Cartel focuses its drug trafficking activities on heroin and cocaine by transporting loads into the United States near the McAllen and Brownsville, Texas, areas.'

Juaréz Cartel and La Linea

The Juaréz Cartel cemented itself as one of the mayor players in the drug trade business back in the 1970s. It founder, Amado Carrillo, was known as 'El Señor de los Cielos' or 'The Lord of the Skies' due to the massive fleet of planes he owned to transport drugs, especially cocaine from Colombia and other countries in Latin America.

The cartel was once allied to El Chapo before that relationship fell apart after the notorious drug lord declined to pay the Juaréz Cartel for the right to use its drug smuggling routes.

The Juaréz Cartel has depended on its armed wing, La Línea, to transport heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas.

How they get drugs into the US: 'These cartels' greatest territorial influence is in the state of Chihuahua near the [south west border]. This area has profitable smuggling opportunities between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas.'

La Familia Michoacana

La Familia Michoacana was once linked to the Gulf Cartel before it went on its own in 2006.

Between 2009 and 2010, the cartel proposed to the Mexican government that it had plans of laying down its arms as long as its home state of Michoacán was granted protection. However, President Felipe Calderón shot down their offer, which led to the cartel becoming increasingly involved in the funding of political candidates.

La Familia Michoacana today maintains a relationship with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and other criminal groups as part of its drug smuggling operation.

How they get drugs into the US: 'LFM has some ties to the CJNG and also works with other smaller groups to further the cartel's drug trafficking activities.'

Los Rojos

Just like Guerreros Unidos, Los Rojos was formed as an armed wing and broke away from the Beltrán-Leyva Organization.

According to a 2020 Congressional report, Los Rojos 'operates in Guerrero and relies heavily on kidnapping and extortion for revenue as well as trafficking cocaine, although analysts dispute the scope of its involvement in the drug trade.'

How they get drugs into the US: 'Los Rojos is involved in heroin trafficking'

El Chapo