From la reina to la rata
Intrigue as true-blue beauty-queen wife may turn on drug king Chapo
Former beauty queen Emma Coronel Aispuro was the perfect picture of loyalty as she sat in the gallery of a Brooklyn courtroom watching the trial of her drug-kingpin husband, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
The US-born narco queen had been an implacable fixture during 11 weeks of hearings, dutifully coming to court each morning to support her hubby — with the pair even wearing matching velvet crimson blazers one day to demonstrate their unbreakable bond.
Dripping in designer duds and perfectly primped with contoured cheekbones, Coronel hardly flinched even when Guzman’s former mistresses took the stand — except to cackle when one of them broke down in tears.
But Thursday, Coronel’s fealty to the world’s most feared drug kingpin and his Sinaloa cartel, now allegedly operated by her stepsons, appeared to be faltering.
She pleaded guilty to felony drug-trafficking charges, signaling a possible deal with prosecutors in exchange for a sentence lighter than the maximum she faces — life in prison.
Prosecutors revealed in the latest court papers that they will seek 108 to 135 months behind bars for her.
Coronel’s Manhattan lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, scoffed at the notion that his client is cooperating with federal prosecutors — a move that could certainly get her killed by the drug syndicate. Lichtman has said the claim is simply a farce designed to jeopardize her safety and force her into dealing with authorities.
“She’s not cooperating. You can plead guilty and not cooperate. And acknowledging guilt does not require a defendant to cooperate against others,” Lichtman told The Post on Friday.
But law-enforcement experts said that the writing may be on the wall, given that Coronel has pleaded guilty and must explain her role in the illegal enterprise as part of the move.
“When you’re talking about a person who’s part of a criminal enterprise or part of a conspiracy, explaining your part in it by definition includes cooperating and informing against other people,” said Olivier Farache, a former FBI agent who spent 11 years with the bureau.
“You can’t just say, ‘I delivered drugs for this enterprise, and that’s all I’m going to say.’ You have to say where you got the drugs from, who you took them to — that’s how it works.”
Coronel has been locked up since February, after she was arrested at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, and is awaiting sentencing in September. Her husband was sentenced to life — plus 30 years — in 2019.
Lou Savera, a former NYPD sergeant who created the department’s gang unit, said Coronel was between a rock and a hard place over whether to cop to a deal — and really would be safer under the protection of US authorities as part of one.
“She’s in danger,’’ he said, noting all the secrets she knows. “She’d be crazy not to cooperate . . . Either that, or get killed.”
Coronel, referred to by fellow narcos as “La Reinita,” or “Little Queen,’’ has known Guzman since childhood.
Born in California, Coronel grew up in the remote Durango village of Canelas on the western edges of Mexico’s rugged interior. Her father, Ines Coronel Barrera, was a feared drug lord working for Guzman, and her brother was reportedly one of his pilots.
It’s said that Guzman first laid eyes on his future wife at a dance Coronel’s father hosted when she was just 17.
Guzman secured the gorgeous teen’s win in a beauty pageant during the Coffee and Guava Festival in Canelas soon after, in 2007 — a claim Coronel has denied — and a few months later, the pair wed on the teen’s 18th birthday.
It’s hard to say how much of a choice Coronel had in the nuptials, which were widely seen as a way to solidify her father’s position within the Sinaloa cartel.
“These mythical figures are admired for their power and their money, but they’re also incredibly feared, you can’t go against them, you can’t cross them,’’ Farache said of Mexico’s ruthless drug lords.
“Saying no to someone like ‘El Chapo’ is not really an option,’’ he said. “[Coronel’s father] knows how violent El Chapo was, or is, and how dangerous he is. At the same time, it solidifies like Old World alliances, his position in the organization, knowing that there’s a wedding, there’s marriage ties.”
After several years of marriage, the couple had two children, twin girls Emali Guadalupe and Maria Joaquina.
Farache pointed to the girls as one of the reasons Coronel may have been inclined to plead guilty over risking a life sentence that could have come with a jury trial.
Coronel has previously claimed that she had no idea Guzman was the globe’s largest and most lethal trafficker of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana — but the feds say it took no time for her to get her hands dirty after the wedding.
Prosecutors allege that her work with Guzman started as soon as they were married and that she has played a role in everything from orchestrating her hubby’s elaborate July 11, 2015, escape from Altiplano prison in Mexico to serving as his go-between during difficult times to help his drug-trafficking operation.
They feds say Coronel played a key role in the audacious escape — an elaborate, months-long plan to dig into Guzman’s cell and whisk him away through a tunnel on a motorbike — and worked with Guzman’s sons to organize construction of the milelong, lighted passage.
Prosecutors say Coronel arranged to sneak a wristwatch with GPS capability disguised as a piece of food to her husband, so his cohorts working to bust him out could know exactly where in the prison he was each day.
For nearly three months, Coronel has been forced to trade her flashy designer outfits and made-for-Instagram lifestyle for hunter-green prison garb while locked up at the Alexandria Adult Detention Center in northern Virginia.
Whether testimony from Coronel will lead to the next blockbuster narco trial — this time starring Guzman’s two sons — remains to be seen, Higgins said.
“We’ll know when she’s sentenced in September,” said Jeff Higgins, a retired federal Drug Enforcement Agency special agent.