She was introduced to the organized network of drug suppliers and smuggled by Aguilar, who was an "enforcer" of the clan.

He said Staub would often do drugs at his safe house - a haven of "drugs, weapons, cash" - including marijuana cigarettes that she'd "sprinkle" with cocaine.

Aguilar saw her do "more than 50 or 100 times," he told authorities.

"We became intimate friends... she would do her drugs... and sometimes I'd wonder was she hanging out for the drugs, which most girls back then did," he stated, in the documents.

In his deposition, Aguilar recalled how Staub soon went from dabbling in drugs to wanting to sell them, which led to her becoming a marked target for his cartel.

He said, "She started talking about, you know, 'I need to get money. I need money to do things.

"So she came to me and she says, 'I have this guy and he wants to buy big weight... four kilos of cocaine."

But the deal went bad when the $100,000 worth of cocaine was stolen during the transaction, leaving an infuriated Staub to claim she had been "ripped off".

Aguilar recounted, "Even my men were saying, 'We should just kill her. Get her out of the way. She's nothing but a prostitute and a b**ch.'"

Aguilar said he saved her from likely death after pleading with drug kingpins to 'find out what happened here'.

"I cared about this woman at the time and I believed her at this point," he said.

"I didn't want her life to end... I still thought that it was going to work out."