By Molly Crane-Newman / New York Daily News
NEW YORK —After sitting silently through more than 200 hours of testimony that included allegations her husband tortured his victims and had them buried alive, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s beauty queen wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, spoke out late Thursday in her most substantial comments since his trial began.
“Today I finish those long days in court where there was everything. Good days and bad days where also my name was mentioned several times and exposed in doubt,” Coronel wrote in Spanish on her Instagram account.
“I can only say that I have nothing to be ashamed of. I am not perfect, but I consider myself a good human being who has never hurt anyone intentionally.”
Guzman has been on trial in federal court in Brooklyn since Nov. 13, 2018. He has pleaded not guilty to a 10-count indictment including charges he ran the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, trafficked vast quantities of drugs to the U.S. for more than 20 years, and conspired to murder anyone who got in his way.
Federal prosecutors and Guzman’s defense team issued their final pleas to the Brooklyn jury Thursday; jurors are expected to begin deliberations Monday.
“Everything that was discussed in the trial about Joaquin, good and bad, does not change in any way the way I think about him,” Coronel wrote.
“I cannot sell another version of Joaquin, and although we have not had contact for a long time, my husband knows how much I love him and he always counted, counts and will count on me.”
The couple’s “Bonnie and Clyde”-type relationship was revealed to jurors on Jan. 9 when Guzman’s former computer technician Cristian Rodriguez testified about dozens of texts exchanged between the pair while Guzman was fleeing authorities in 2012.
“Do you have a gun?” a fugitive Guzman texted his wife, who is 32 years his junior, in one exchange.
“Yes, I have one of yours,” she replied.
“Love, whenever you see suspicious-looking cars, let me know so I can get them checked out right away,” Guzman texted another time.
“They’re following you, darling. You just continue to lead a normal life. They just want to know if you come to where I am.”
Coronel, who has 7-year-old twin daughters with Guzman, was further implicated in her husband’s life of crime when one of his former associates testified on Jan. 23 that she aided in his subterranean escape from Altiplano maximum security prison in Mexico in 2015.
Guzman’s associate who testified about her coordinating was Damaso Lopez Nunez.
Under direct examination, Lopez told the court Coronel communicated orders from Guzman to his associates on the outside, and helped to arrange a payment of $100,000 that was later used to buy a plot of land surrounding the prison and build a mile-long tunnel for him to escape.
When one of Guzman’s myriad former mistresses, Lucero Sanchez Lopez, took the stand in mid-January to testify against him, Guzman and Coronel wore matching burgundy velvet jackets in an apparent show of unity.
“I was trying always to keep him happy. I was confused over my feelings for him. Sometimes I loved him, and sometimes I didn’t,” Sanchez Lopez told the court.
“I always publicly denied the relationship with Mr. Guzman. Out of fear.”
Guzman, who has been held in solitary confinement at Metropolitan Correctional Center since his extradition to the U.S. in January 2017, has reportedly not spoken with his wife in more than two years.
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