Lawyer for El Chapo’s wife says feds are trying to murder her family

Emma Coronel Aispuro in custody after Dulles Airport arrest

The lawyer for El Chapo’s wife has claimed that the US government leaking rumours about her cooperation with authorities is designed to get her family murdered.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, is being held in a Washington DC prison after being arrested at Dulles Airport and charged with helping her drug lord husband run his multi-billion dollar empire.

Her attorney Jeffrey Lichtman claimed that rumours she is prepared to turn on the Sinaloa cartel is “designed to kill her family.”

And he told WABC that the “planting of the story” is “absolutely the most despicable thing, probably the worst prosecutorial governmental misconduct I’ve ever experienced in 30 years.”

“And I’ve been involved with fabrication of evidence, destroying evidence, lying to judges, lying to juries by the feds, but to actually put this out there is an attempt to murder her and her family,” he added. 

“Let’s be clear about this. She’s got two 9-year-old girls that are exposed, obviously, and to put this out there so flippantly is designed to kill them.”

Ms Aispuro, who has dual US and Mexican citizenship, and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman have twin girls together, Emali Guadalupe and Maria Joaquina.

Law enforcement sources told the New York Post on Sunday that Ms Aispuro was “definitely cooperating” and was a candidate for witness protection.

But Mr Lichtman strongly denied that was the case.

“If there was cooperation that was going on or was about to go on, it’s been destroyed,” he said.

“So you’ve got federal agents that don’t care about the fact that they’ve sworn to uphold the law, have violated it and have destroyed any ability to exploit any cooperation by her,” he said.

Ms Aispuro refused to cooperate with authorities when her husband stood trial in New York in 2019. 

The Mexican cartel boss was subsequently sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years.