Husband of “bravest woman in Mexico” sentenced for drug smuggling

25-year-old Ernesto Daniel Rubio Cervantes was sentenced to nearly six years in prison today, after pleading guilty to a pair of marijuana smuggling charges.

He sat quietly in federal judge Kathlene Cardone’s courtroom while awaiting sentencing this afternoon.

Wearing bright orange jail clothes, his wrists and ankles shackles, Rubio Cervantes rubbed his eyes repeatedly.

Rubio was going to be sentenced on two counts of conspiracy to import 50 kilos or more of marijuana and conspiracy to possess and distribute 50 kilos or more of marijuana

His wife, once known as the bravest woman in Mexico, Marisol Valles Garcia, sat quietly in the back of the courtroom. Marisol made international headlines in 2010 during the height of the border drug war when she became the police chief of Parxedis Guerrero, a small town in the Juarez Valley after the then police chief was murdered and his head left in an ice chest.

She and her family fled after 4 months on the job and asked for political asylum in the U.S. for herself, her husband and children after being threatened with death by cartel members

Her family was granted asylum.

When the sentencing hearing began Rubio Cervantes stood in front of the witness stand and pleaded with the judge to give him a second chance, asking to be given an opportunity to return to his family.

Rubio went on to say he was not as bad a person as he seemed and apologized to the court, tears

streaming from his eyes as he sobbed.

His wife, Marisol, began crying in the back of the courtroom.

Judge Cardone looked quietly at him and said “I just don’t get it”asking “Why don’t you think of the

consequences of what you are doing?”

She then sentenced him to 70 months in federal prison and 3 years probation.

His wife, Marisol wept quietly as she sat on the edge of a wooden bench waiting to say goodbye.

We asked for an interview but she declined saying she had no comment.