Grief author suspected of killing her husband indicted on new charges

[ad_1] The Utah mother dealing with prices for allegedly killing her husband and later publishing a youngsters's ebook on how to deal with grief was indicted Friday in reference to a sequence of monetary crimes associated to his demise.

Kouri Richins, 34, was charged in reference to greater than two dozen counts of mortgage fraud, forgery, issuing a foul verify, cash laundering, communications fraud, and a sample of illegal exercise within the months earlier than her husband, Eric Richins, 39, was poisoned in 2022.

The brand new prices come greater than two years after the mom of three was arrested and charged in connection together with her husband's killing, which she pleaded not responsible to.

In accordance with the indictment, Richins used an influence of lawyer in 2019 to acquire a $250,000 house fairness line of credit score (HELOC) on a home her husband owned earlier than they bought married with out his information. She then allegedly invested the cash in her actual property enterprise.

"The key origination and continued existence of the HELOC was a supply of pressure between the Defendant and Eric Richins," the indictment says. "The Defendant knowledgeable Eric Richins that she would repay the mortgage and led Eric Richins to imagine that she had repaid it. The HELOC was not paid off on the day of Eric Richins’ demise."

Eric Richins then allegedly consulted an property planning lawyer in 2020 to "shield himself within the short-term from just lately found and ongoing abuse and misuse of his funds by the Defendants, and to guard his three youngsters within the long-term by making certain that the Defendant would by no means be capable to handle his property after his demise," the indictment alleges.

Richins can be accused of stealing greater than $100,000 from her husband's enterprise and spending tens of hundreds of {dollars} on his bank cards, the indictment says.

Kouri and Eric Richins. through Fb Kouri Richins’ attorneys, Kathy Nester and Wendy Lewis, stated the brand new prices have been "extraordinarily troubling."

"This sudden push to file new fraud prices over two years later underscores the weak spot of the state’s pending homicide prices, since these fraud prices wouldn't even come into play until they fail to safe a conviction," the attorneys stated in an announcement.

Kouri Richins’ arrest gained nationwide consideration as a result of she revealed a youngsters’s ebook titled “Are You with Me?”— which tells the story of a kid whose useless father watches over him as an angel — and promoted the ebook on nationwide tv.

Eric Richins was discovered unresponsive within the pair's Utah house — about 40 miles southeast of Salt Lake Metropolis — after having had a cocktail to rejoice his spouse’s enterprise deal.