Emma Coronel Spends 22 Hours Locked Up In Her Prison Cell and Wants Better Confinement Conditions

“MX” for Borderland Beat

Emma Coronel, wife of former Sinaloa Cartel drug kingpin Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, spends 22 hours locked up inside her prison cell in the US. Her attorney, Mariel Colón, has asked for better confinement conditions.

“Her confinement conditions have not improved yet. She is locked up almost all day,” her lawyer told The Associated Press.

Coronel does not share a cell with other inmates. Colón did not answer questions about whether she speaks on the phone with her twin daughters. 

“She only leaves her cell when they take her out to another interior room. But nothing else. Unfortunately, the prison does not offer any activities for her to distract herself. The only thing she can do while in her cell is read,” her attorney said. Colón added that she did not remember the title of the book that Coronel is reading.

Coronel, 31, was arrested in February at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. She stands accused of conspiring to smuggle illicit drugs into the U.S., and helping her husband tunnel out of a maximum-security prison in Mexico.

Reports say that Coronel turned herself in and was prepared to face federal charges when she landed in the US. Coronel’s surrender signals the existence of a cooperation agreement, where she could provide information or testimony in exchange for leniency in her own case.

As reported by Borderland Beat last month, Coronel is not happy in her current predicament. She claimed that she is cold because prison authorities have not given her adequate clothing or blankets for the low temperatures in her prison cell.

Coronel also compalined last month that they will not sell her bottled water, and that she has to drink water from the fountain. She said the taste of it is so disgusting that when she tried to drink it she got nauseous and vomited.

Sources: AP Español; Chicago Tribune; Dallas News; Milenio; Borderland Beat archives