Emma Modesta Coronel, the 33-year-old wife of former Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, has been moved out of federal prison and to a halfway house in San Pedro. The transfer happened at the end of May, bringing the former teen beauty queen from The Federal Medical Center, Carswell Air Force Base, a federal penitentiary for women in Fort Worth, Texas, primarily those with special medical or mental health needs.
She is now said to be under the jurisdiction of the Long Beach Residential Reentry Management Office a federal operation overseeing "community confinement," meaning Coronel will most likely be stuck in a home arrest situation in an unidentified halfway house, strapped with a GPS monitoring device, like many inmates at the final 12-18 month stretch of their federal time.
The California-born, Durango-raised Coronel was arrested at Dulles International Airport in 2021, accused by the FBI of sending messages to El Chapo from his employees and sons, and assisting his infamous escape from The Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 "Altiplano" in Mexico. Coronel plead guilty to a number of drug conspiracy charges, asking for a sentence that would still allow her to watch her twin daughters grow up. She got three years.
According to CBS News, she is expected to be released in mid-September. At which point, she'll probably bid adieu to Long Beach.
Or just maybe... she'll hang around town just a little while. Start skateboarding. Eat Cambodian pizza. Jam some Sublime.
