Kouri Richins, the Utah youngsters’s ebook creator is dealing with life in jail after she was convicted of murdering her husband — however that’s not the top of her authorized woes.
She faces a second trial for alleged monetary crimes tied to a plot to money in on the partner’s thousands and thousands.
Richins, 35, was discovered responsible by a jury on 5 costs tied to a plot to kill hubby Eric Richins by slipping 5 occasions the deadly quantity of fentanyl into his Moscow Mule at their Kamas residence on March 4, 2022.
Kouri — who had three sons with Eric — will be taught her destiny at her Might 13 sentencing, which might have been Eric’s forty fourth birthday.
However the failed residence flipper nonetheless faces trial on a further 26 costs in connection to accusations she carried out a monetary scheme in a bid to steal Eric’s $4 million property, together with taking out large high-interest loans, forging paperwork and shifting cash via shell corporations earlier than she offed him.
Following Kouri’s arrest, over a 12 months after Eric’s dying and after she penned a youngsters ebook to assist her sons grieve, a juvenile court docket gave custody of the three sons to Eric’s household, the Park Report reported.
She’s been in jail since she was cuffed in Might 2023.
Through the three-week trial that wrapped in Summit County Courtroom in Park Metropolis Monday night, prosecutors claimed that Kouri was motivated to slay Eric over greed and need to seem profitable and prosperous.
In the meantime, the protection known as the investigation towards Kouri “sloppy” and urged Eric by chance overdosed after taking fentanyl.
Kouri ran her actual property enterprise into $4.5 million in debt and needed to run away together with her useful man lover however couldn’t inherit if she divorced Eric due to a prenup.
So she hatched a homicide plot — which she practiced in an unsuccessful bid to kill Eric two weeks earlier by lacing his sandwich with the identical road drug she finally slayed him with, prosecutors argued.
Earlier than the homicide, Kouri took out life insurance coverage insurance policies in Eric’s identify with out his data, totaling $2 million. She additionally took out a $250,000 mortgage on their mansion with out his data, prosecutors claimed.
Eric found the key residence fairness mortgage in October 2020, prompting him to satisfy with a divorce lawyer and finally transfer his belongings right into a protected belief that his sister oversaw. Eric reduce Kouri out of his will and altered his life insurance coverage coverage eradicating her because the beneficiary, prosecutors claimed.
Within the pending felony case, Kouri can be accused of stealing $134,000 from her husband’s stone masonry firm, taking out $100,000 from his financial institution accounts and spending over $30,000 on his bank cards.
She faces costs of cash laundering, mortgage fraud, communications fraud, forgery and issuing unhealthy checks.
A trial date has not been set but in that case. Her subsequent court docket look in that case is about for April 17.
Eric’s household individually sued Kouri for over $13 million for the cash she allegedly stole from him.
Eric’s sister, Amy Richins, advised reporters Monday that the household have been now turning their consideration to caring for Kouri and Eric’s sons and honoring his reminiscence.
“Actually I really feel like we’re all in shock. It’s been a very long time coming,” Amy stated. “Simply very glad that we acquired justice for my brother.”
Kouri’s youngsters’s ebook, “Are You With Me?” — which she self-published and promoted on native television and radio a couple of months earlier than she was busted — has since been taken down for buy on Amazon.
With Submit wires
