NEW YORK _ Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's wife hasn't left the Mexican drug lord in the dust, his lawyers said Tuesday.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, who attended every day of her husband's trafficking trial in Brooklyn until her startling absence Monday and Tuesday, is simply taking a break to handle personal matters and spend Christmas with the couple's 7-year-old twin daughters in Mexico, the lawyers said.
She's "dealing with the kids," defense lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman said Tuesday.
"She is fine. Just had to take care of some things," fellow defense lawyer A. Eduardo Balarezo said.
In a TV interview with Telemundo last week, Coronel said she planned to attend as much of the estimated three-month trial as possible but admitted it's been exhausting.
She gushed about her husband and said she realizes he looks for her in the courtroom each day because she's the only member of his family able to attend the trial.
"I think it's what any wife would do, being by their husband's side in difficult times, like the ones he's going through right now," she said in Spanish.
Coronel said their only contact since Guzman left Mexico has been seeing each other across the courtroom each day.
"Obviously I want to see him, I want to be with him. I want to know what's going on," she said.
Guzman, 61, has pleaded not guilty to a long list of felony charges involving money laundering, conspiracy, firearms and international distribution of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana.
Prosecutors claim he was a billionaire drug boss who commanded a vast narcotics empire before his arrest at a Mexican hideout in January 2016.
His lawyers claim he's being framed by cooperating witnesses who became government informants to save themselves.
Speaking to Telemundo, Coronel described her husband as a "humble and simple" family man.
"Sometimes I feel the media has overexposed him," the former beauty queen said. "I feel people created an image of him, and they want that image to remain in the public's consciousness. It's the image that sells. So when someone says he's a humble and simple man, they don't like to hear that."
Coronel, 29, said Guzman appears "thinner" since his extradition to the U.S. but she believes he's "staying positive" during the trial now in its sixth week.
Coronel said she's had no part in any illegal activity _ and that's why she's been allowed to travel to New York and attend the high-profile trial.
"I own land and things of that sort. I'd rather not go into that. But I don't ... I'm not involved in anything illegal," she said.
The American-born daughter of a Mexican cattle rancher said she hasn't really considered testifying on her husband's behalf when it's time to mount his defense.
She said it's too soon for people to pass judgment on her family.
"He's a defendant on trial. People are looking at him like he's already been declared guilty. I'd like to clear that up. He's still on trial. We have to wait to see if all those serious accusations ... are proven," she said.
