Wife of cartel kingpin 'El Chapo' says she's 'afraid for his life'

He stands accused of heading the cartel responsible for trafficking 1.8 million pounds of cocaine to the U.S. and other countries over the course of a decade, plus torture, kidnappings, and murder, but Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, says her husband is a doting family man who is "not violent, not rude."

The 26-year-old former beauty queen spoke with the Los Angeles Times and Telemundo for her first public interview about life with El Chapo, and said she has never heard her husband of eight years "say a bad word" or "get excited or be upset at anyone." Coronel was born in San Francisco, and is El Chapo's third wife and mother to two of his reported 19 children. The U.S. Treasury Department said in 2013 that her father, Ines Coronel Barreras, was one of El Chapo's top two lieutenants in the Sinaloa cartel, a charge that she denies.

El Chapo famously escaped from prison last year, and has been in solitary confinement at the El Altiplano prison in Mexico since his recapture last month. "They want to make him pay for his escape," Coronel said. "They say they are not punishing him. Of course they are. They are there with him, watching him in his cell." Coronel said officials won't let him "sleep," and he "has no privacy, not even to go to the restroom." She has been able to visit him once for 15 minutes, surrounded by guards with El Chapo donning shackles and handcuffs. Coronel believes her husband is in danger, as he's "slowly being tortured" and has extremely high blood pressure. "I am afraid for his life," she said.

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