El Chapo's beauty queen wife shows unwavering support

'El Chapo' drug trial ends in conviction After a 3 month trial, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been convicted of 10 counts of drug-trafficking and conspiracy charges.

During the trial of convicted Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, his 29-year-old wife has shown him steadfast support, flashed him smiles in the courtroom and boasted about him as a father to the press.

Emma Coronel Aispuro – the U.S.-born beauty queen and mother to Guzman’s young twin daughters -- has been married to him since 2007. The pair met at a dance in small Mexican town, BBC News reported.

When she spoke to The New York Times in January, she voiced unwavering support for her husband and said she admired him. This was despite having heard witnesses statements during Guzman’s U.S. trial -- including from Guzman’s mistresses -- who detailed grueling stories of torture, infidelity, murder and even, rape.

"I don't know my husband as the person they [the prosecution] are trying to show him as," Aispuro told the U.S. newspaper, "but rather I admire him as the human being that I met, and the one that I married."

On Feb. 12, her husband Guzman was found guilty on all 10 criminal counts -- including drug conspiracy -- and is now faces life in prison.

Last year, Guzman was extradited to the United States from Mexico to face charges of drug trafficking and money-laundering. In 2015, Guzman had famously tunnelled out of Mexico’s top security prison, which kicked off a six-month manhunt where he and Aispuro managed to evade Mexican authorities.

The pair met when she was 17 years old

Aispuro was born in California while her mother was visiting relatives there, but she grew up in a mountainous town of Mexico’s northern Durango state. She was 17 when she first met Guzman who was more than twice her age at the time.

A few months later, she won a beauty pageant becoming the official “Coffee and Guava Queen of Sinaloa.” The two tied the knot on her 18th birthday in Durango state, Interior Deputy Secretary Eduardo Sanchez told The Associated Press back in 2013.

But she wasn’t Guzman’s first wife.

Before ending up with Aispuro, Guzman had been married three times and fathered at least seven children. Aispuro is the mother to Guzman’s seven-year-old twin daughters, Emali and Maria Joaquina, and infamously threw them a Barbie-themed party last September.

She’s been one of Guzman’s biggest supporters and boasted about him as a father.

In the same January interview with the New York Times she also said, “he always was a father very present to the attention of our daughters.” She also described the girls as “the adoration of their father and he is the adoration of them.”

Aispuro had been quite active on Twitter and used it to regularly show messages of support as well as her regrets that she didn’t do more to help Guzman.

After Guzman was captured and two weeks after he was extradited to the U.S., she tweeted in Spanish, “I could never forget you, not after loving you so much.” But she hasn’t tweeted since Aug. 2017.

Then, before her account was recently deleted, she turned to Instagram and regularly posted pictures of herself and her family. As her husband awaited trial, her social media posts regularly showed her posing in bikinis on the beach and showcased her taste in expensive accessories, such as Prada purses and brand-name sunglasses.

Wife shy with press, voices support for Guzman

Despite her formal training as a journalist in Culiácan, Mexico, Aispuro is notoriously shy at speaking to the press and has rarely given sit-down interviews. But when she has spoken to reporters during the trial, she made sure to complain about Guzman’s imprisonment conditions.

When Aispuro eventually did a sit-down interview on Telemundo back in December, she described Guzman as a “normal” and “simple” man whose actions had been exaggerated by the media. She also said she took an interest in the trial because she believed it would clear the air about Guzman’s business activities.

Since Guzman’s trial started in November, Aispuro had rarely missed a day in court and, according to BBC News, Guzman waved to his wife whenever he entered into the courtroom. The couple dressed in matching burgundy jackets in solidarity and they even gave each other tearful thumbs-ups following her husband’s verdict.

Despite denials that she knew nothing of illegal activities, the jury was shown texts between the couple -- when Guzman was on the run in 2012 -- where they fussed over their children and even touched on logistics for drug smuggling. But she hasn’t faced any criminal charges.

The court also heard testimony that Aispuro’s father had worked for the Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel. He was also convicted of drug trafficking.

During the Guzman’s trial, U.S. prosecutors argued the drug kingpin had amassed an empire which netted $14 billion over his 30-year-reign on the smuggling of narcotics -- mostly done through the use of an extensive network of intricately-made tunnels.