Convicted husband killer Kouri Richins was so determined to get her enemies out of jail that she enlisted her family to smear the lead police officer in her Utah murder case, prosecutors said.
Richins – the 35-year-old Kamas mother who poisoned her husband Eric Richins – tried to file criminal, civil and law enforcement charges against Eric’s family even after she was incarcerated, according to documents filed by prosecutors ahead of her sentencing Wednesday.
While a failed domestic investigator was in custody awaiting trial, he asked his family to accuse Summit County prosecutors and the chief prosecutor of misconduct in Utah bar complaints and “posted the lead detective’s ‘gay dating profile’ online,” prosecutors said in a filing.
A number of new charges against Kouri were revealed as the office asked a judge to sentence him to life in prison without parole because he was “irredeemable.”
Judge Richard Mrazik accepted the plea and threw the book at Kouri after an hours-long hearing in which Eric’s family and Eric’s and Kouri’s sons pleaded with the judge not to release him.
Kouri also made a controversial statement that she did not kill Eric and made harsh comments to her three sons – who were not in court but whose statements were read by social workers.
While inside the slammer, Kouri wrote a letter to her mother ordering her to release the pictures from the newspapers of the young children of Eric’s sister, Katie Richins-Benson. He also wrote in the book “I bring home and we get those damn b—hes,” in which he is said to be referring to Eric’s two sisters.
Kouri then said she wrote the letter as part of a novel she was writing in prison after facing it, prosecutors said.
Kouri also tried to get Katie under a criminal investigation and filed a false child services report against her sister-in-law, the report said.
Kouri also reported Eric’s other sister, Amy Richins, for allegedly possessing pot, court documents said.
And he asked his family to file felony gun charges against Eric’s father, Gene Richins, after he removed the gun from his family for “safekeeping,” prosecutors said.
Before her arrest and days after Kouri killed Eric, by spiking his Moscow Mule cocktail with fentanyl, she “throat-slammed” Amy, who was charged.
Kouri also tried to tarnish Eric’s name with lies after his death, accusing him of having an affair with a co-worker and sleeping with another man, one of her best friends, the documents said.
He also made “an unsubstantiated criminal complaint to the FBI about Eric Richins’ associate,” the filing said.
“The defendant cannot test his will,” prosecutors wrote. Or his sense of entitlement. When he confronts her, she lies. When he is upset, he attacks. And he feels really bad; he always does.
When Kouri was sentenced on Wednesday, his lawyers said that he should receive the minimum sentence of 25 years in prison as they said that the prosecutor’s documents were for Kouri’s murder.
It also emerged for the first time in the sentencing papers that Kouri’s sons were afraid of her and did not want her to come out at all.
Kouri was convicted in March of putting five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in Eric’s drink on March 4, 2022. She tried to kill him two weeks earlier by lacing his sandwich with the same drug.
Kouri was fueled by her naive belief that she would inherit Eric’s $4 million to help clear his real estate debts and allow her to start a new life with her assistant lover.
He was not arrested until a year later and after he wrote a children’s book of grief to help his sons deal with the loss of their father, entitled “Are You With Me?”
Kouri went on local TV and radio stations promoting the book in the months before her arrest.
He has maintained his innocence and said he plans to appeal the case. His attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning.
