- Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, missed the accused Mexican drug lord's trial in Brooklyn on Monday.
- Until Monday, Aispuro had attended every day of Guzman's federal trial.
- Guzman pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges, and Aispuro previously called him a "normal, ordinary person."
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's wife was absent from the accused Sinaloa cartel leader's trial on Monday for the first time since it began six weeks ago.
Emma Coronel Aispuro's absence appeared to confuse Guzman, who was seen scanning the courtroom for Aispuro, according to The New York Post.
Until Monday, Aispuro had attended every day of Guzman's federal trial in Brooklyn.
A source close to Aispuro told The Post that the 29-year-old was still in New York, but it was unclear exactly where she was or why she missed court.
The former beauty queen's absence came just days after she gave a rare public interview to Telemundo, in which she defended her husband and called him a "normal, ordinary person."
Read more:Emma Coronel Aispuro is a former beauty queen who unwaveringly supports her husband
The American-born mother-of-two told Telemundo that she had never seen her husband doing anything illegal, according to translations from The New York Post.
"[The media] made him too famous," Aispuro said of her 61-year-old husband, whom she married on her 18th birthday in 2007. "It's not fair."
Guzman pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges connected to claims that he built a multi-billion-dollar fortune by smuggling cocaine and other drugs across the Mexico-US border.
He faces 17 counts for alleged links to drug trafficking in the US and Mexico.
After years on the run, Guzman was extradited to the United States last year and was held in solitary confinement in a high-security prison as he awaited trial, according to the Associated Press.
- Read more about El Chapo:
- Here's the story behind 'El Mayo' Zambada, the man El Chapo says was the real boss behind the Sinaloa Cartel
- 'El Chapo' Guzman is on trial in New York for leading the world's largest drug trafficking organization, and his attorneys are saying he's a 'scapegoat' who 'controlled nothing'
- El Chapo's trial sees 27 jurors dismissed — some for the most bizarre reasons
- What El Chapo is really like — according to the wife of one his closest henchman
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