Sheriff, former sheriff charged with obstruction of justice related to Kouri Richins case: Filings
Kouri Richins listens to statements written by her children during her sentencing in 3rd District Court, May 13, 2026, in Park City, Utah. (Trent Nelson/Pool/Getty Images)
A current sheriff and a former sheriff of two Utah counties have been charged with obstruction of justice in connection with the Kouri Richins murder case, according to court filings related to heavily redacted, newly unsealed indictments.
Kouri Richins was found guilty of murdering her husband in March. The high-profile weekslong trial in Summit County followed a yearslong investigation that garnered national attention.
A former Summit County sheriff and the sheriff of neighboring Wasatch County face charges related to Kouri Richins’ prosecution, according to defense motions seeking that the indictments be redacted upon release due to the highly publicized murder trial.
Wasatch County Sheriff Jared Rigby was charged with one count of obstruction of justice in a criminal proceeding, a second-degree felony, and one count of making a written false statement, a misdemeanor. The indictment alleges that he made, presented or used a knowingly false item in January “with intent to hinder” a prosecution.
David Edmunds, who served as the sheriff of Summit County from 2003 to 2014, was charged with one count of obstruction of justice in a criminal investigation, a third-degree felony, according to the indictment. The indictment alleges that he provided false information “with intent to hinder” an investigation on March 13.
Both indictments, which were filed last month, were unsealed Wednesday with significant redactions.
According to Rigby’s motion, the charges against him “allege interference” in the Kouri Richins case over an anonymous letter postmarked Jan. 10, 2026. The filing does not detail the contents of the letter, who wrote it or to whom it was addressed.
According to Edmunds’ motion, the language in his indictment “names the Richins prosecution and connects the anonymous letter to alleged misconduct by a Summit County sheriff’s deputy.” The indictment accuses Edmunds of making a false statement “intended to hinder identification of the letter’s author,” the filing states.
ABC News has reached out to their attorneys and the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office for comment but did not immediately receive a response. Rigby has previously said he acted lawfully.
$55 million in damages
A Summit County jury found Kouri Richins guilty of fatally poisoning her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl in March. Judge Richard Mrazik, who presided over the murder trial, sentenced her to life without parole.
The 36-year-old mother of three, who self-published a children’s book on grieving following her husband’s death in 2022, is currently seeking a new criminal trial. Her request is under consideration by the Utah Court of Appeals.
This week, Judge Mrazik ordered that she pay more than $55 million in damages to the estate and family members of her late husband in a wrongful death claim.
In his order, Mrazik noted that Kouri Richins did not dispute any of the factual statements in the motion for judgment, which sought an order concluding that she “wrongfully caused” her husband’s death.
The judge stated in his order that he concluded from the guilty verdict and the “undisputed record evidence” that Kouri Richins caused her husband’s death by poisoning him.
The order includes $10,780,129 in economic damages and $3 million in non-economic damages — $1 million for each Richins child — that “seek to compensate wrongful death victims for loss of society, love, companionship, protection, guidance, and affection.”
“Eric shared deep, emotional connections with his three minor children, who are the Estate’s only heirs,” the order stated. “His death has caused them severe trauma, and it will have permanent effects on each. In addition, by killing Eric, which resulted in her imprisonment, Kouri deprived the minor children of being with their father or their mother.”
The order also included $41,340,387 in punitive damages, which were determined by multiplying the economic and non-economic damages by three.
Leon Black, chairman and chief executive officer of Apollo Global Management LLC, attends the annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., April 27, 2015. (Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Appearing before the House Oversight Committee Friday, private equity billionaire Leon Black said he was unaware of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s “demonic life” and that the $158 million he paid Epstein was for legitimate services and “bona fide advice,” according to a copy of his opening remarks reviewed by ABC News.
The latest in a series of rich and powerful people questioned about their relationship with Epstein as part of the House Oversight panel’s ongoing probe, Black maintained a social relationship with Epstein since the mid-1990s and eventually paid him more than $170 million for “tax and estate planning advice,” according to the Senate Finance Committee.
Black has denied wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, though his financial payments to Epstein served as a lifeline to the convicted sex offender in the years after Epstein’s 2008 prison sentence for soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Black’s prepared remarks cast him as the victim of “ugly and vicious” narratives around Epstein, saying he has been the subject of baseless allegations and conspiracy theories about Epstein and that “extraordinary damage has been done to me and my family.”
“I wish I had never met Epstein. I regret ever doing business with him. My association with him, the frivolous but destructive litigation, the endless rumor mill, have created a toxic environment for my wife and family, which I deeply regret,” the prepared remarks said.
Addressing the massive amount of money he paid Epstein, Black, in his remarks, said those were legitimate payments and that he was never blackmailed by Epstein.
“Let me state unequivocally that I have never abused a woman. I have never been with an underage woman. I have never engaged in sex trafficking. I have never paid Epstein for access to women. I was never blackmailed by Epstein. I was not involved with, and had no knowledge of, any of Epstein’s heinous conduct,” his prepared remarks said.
According to Black, Epstein lived a “Jekyll and Hyde” existence and that he, at first, only saw the positive side, including his “unrivaled network of relationships with individuals in finance, academia, science, politics.” Black, in his remarks, said his relationship with Epstein began as personal but grew overtime to helping manage his family investment office.
“With hindsight, I now see that Epstein exaggerated, embellished, manipulated, and outright lied — prolifically and without concern for me or my family. And I now see that his deceit was not limited to me but also extended to numerous highly sophisticated individuals,” Black’s prepared remarks said.
While Black said that Epstein “took credit for other people’s ideas” and made false claims about investments, Black also argued Epstein was able to resolve “a massive estate problem” for him that ” would have destroyed enormous value.” According to Black’s remarks, he originally thought he was paying Epstein $95 million in net fees, though that was actually $158 million because Epstein lied about the tax deductibility of the payment.
Black also said in his prepared remarks that he was aware of Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution, but that Epstein lied about the nature of the crime.
“Epstein told me that it was an isolated incident resulting from a fake ID. Five years after his conviction, I gave Epstein a second chance, as did many others. I wish I had not,” he said, according to his prepared remarks.
According to Black, he cut ties with Epstein in 2018 after Epstein failed to repay most of a $30 million loan. Black said he grew “tired of his relentless pursuit of more and more money from me for professional services.”
While Black, according to his remarks, said that he was “glad” to answer the committee’s questions, he noted that he will “not speak about the personal lives of adult women” that he believes should not be connected to Epstein.
“I am here to voluntarily answer questions about the work that Epstein did for me and for the services for which I paid him. I am not here to answer questions about my personal life which would be hurtful to my wife, children and family. And I will not speak about the personal lives of adult women who have not chosen, and do not deserve, to be connected, by me or anyone else, to Epstein,” Black said, per his remarks.
“Leon Black was one of Jeffrey Epstein’s primary sources of income, flooding him with cash at a time when he was already a registered sex offender. Black has not yet offered a compelling explanation regarding the origination and execution of Epstein’s extraordinary compensation scheme for alleged tax advice,” Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, wrote in a letter to the House Oversight Committee earlier this month. The Senate Finance Committee is leading its own investigation of Epstein’s finances.
Black has long been scrutinized over his relationship with the disgraced financier — describing it as a “horrible mistake” — and was forced out of his firm Apollo Global Management following an external investigation that revealed payments to Epstein totaling at least $158 million.
“Knowing all that I have learned in the past two years about Epstein’s reprehensible and despicable conduct, I deeply regret having had any involvement with him,” Black said during a 2020 Apollo earnings call. “With the benefit of hindsight, working with him was a horrible mistake on my part. I am not seeking to excuse that decision, but I do believe it may be helpful to convey some relevant facts.”
While the investigation concluded that Black and others were aware of Epstein’s 2008 conviction, a report summarizing its findings said that Black was not “involved in any way with Epstein’s criminal activities at any time” or aware of the “scope and details” of Epstein’s sex trafficking. Black has never been charged with a crime.
“When Black first retained Epstein, he believed that Epstein had served his time for the originally charged offenses and believed that it was not inappropriate to give Epstein a second chance, as many other prominent figures in business, science, politics and academia had done,” the report said.
The release of the Department of Justice’s Epstein files earlier this year cast more scrutiny on Black, whose name appears in the files more than 8,000 times. Epstein at one point appeared to serve as a middleman to pay $100,000 to a woman with whom Black allegedly had an affair, according to emails included in the files, and routinely served as a fixer for issues involving his finances.
“Leon, as you are well aware, there is little I won’t do for you or at least try to do as a friend, and a great deal that I have already done (both known and some things that will need to remain unknown),” Epstein wrote to Black in a 2014 email. In another email in 2017, Epstein described his relationship with Black as “saving you from yourself.”
In a statement to ABC News, Black’s attorney Susan Estrich pointed to the external investigation conducted for Apollo that found Black “had no awareness of the criminal activities that led to Epstein’s arrest in 2019” and noted that Black has called for an independent investigation of his relationship with Epstein.
Wyden of the Senate Finance Committee has called on the House Oversight members to scrutinize the $170 million that Black paid Epstein between 2012 and 2017 for purported tax and estate planning. According to Wyden, those payments are sixty times more than what Epstein paid his other tax and estate professionals during the same timeframe.
“Black is a well-advised businessman with access to sophisticated attorneys, yet it appears Epstein was able to shake him down for money that he wasn’t legally owed. This suggests that Epstein may have extorted Black or performed other unseemly tasks on his behalf,” Wyden wrote earlier this month.
Attorneys for Black have pushed back against Wyden’s accusations, accusing him of harassment and saying that the billionaire has cooperated “voluntarily and without compulsion.”
“We are aware of no other private citizen subjected to more written requests from you over the same period,” Black’s attorneys wrote in an April 2026 letter to Wyden. “Your continued attempts to invade into matters pertaining to Mr. Black’s personal life — without the support of any legitimate legislative purpose — appear targeted to unfairly harass Mr. Black in a manner that completely disregards the proper scope of Congress’s investigative powers.”
According to the 2021 external report, Epstein was paid proportionally to the amount of money he saved Black and that Epstein “provided advice that conferred more than $1 billion and as much as $2 billion or more in value to Black”; however, the report also acknowledged that Epstein’s advice was often not useful and that he was “generally a disruptive and caustic force.”
The external report said investigators found “no evidence suggesting that Black ever compensated Epstein for any service other than Epstein’s legitimate advice on trust and estate planning” and other issues.
Six Flags Magic Mountain on March 6, 2026, in Valencia, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The X2 rollercoaster, which is the subject of multiple lawsuits, has been shut down, the president of Six Flags Magic Mountain announced Tuesday.
“After almost 20 years, we have decided to permanently retire X2,” Six Flags Magic Mountain President Brian Oerding said in a statement posted on the Six Flags blog.
“While X2 consistently passed a multitude of safety tests, we have decided to close the ride because we believe it’s the right thing to do. Ride safety is a cornerstone of our business, and when we see guest confidence affected, we take it seriously,” Oerding said.
Lawsuits allege riders suffered major brain injuries after riding the X2 roller coaster. Attorneys representing the plaintiffs say more than 100 people have come forward.
X2 has been closed since July 12 and will now stay closed.
The lawsuits allege the ride had design problems dating back to when the ride first opened in 2002, originally called X.
According to court documents, Pamela Guillen and her family visited Six Flags Magic Mountain in July of this year for her daughter’s 16th birthday. Guillen said X2 was the family’s final ride of the day.
After exiting the ride, Guillen said she felt confused and disoriented. Her next memory was waking up in a hospital two weeks later and learning from her family that she had undergone emergency brain surgery.
“I was confused and disoriented, and I remember seeing the fear in my daughter’s eyes and how scared she was,” Guillen recalled. “Everything went blank. My next memory is waking up in the hospital about two weeks later.”
Guillen is one of three people who recently filed lawsuits against Six Flags Magic Mountain alleging they suffered major brain injuries after riding X2.
“I had suffered a traumatic brain injury and needed emergency brain surgery to stop the bleeding and had to be intubated. I was in a coma. I spent almost a month at the hospital,” Guillen said.
Another plaintiff, Michael Wick, visited the park with his family and rode X2. Wick’s attorney said he has undergone two brain surgeries and is now unable to practice law because of a disability.
Six days after Guillen collapsed while exiting X2, Naomi Greer-Wilkinson rode the coaster. Her parents said they are still waiting for her to begin breathing on her own.
“Naomi, 25 years old, still hasn’t come home. Her parents, Artemis and Josh, are with her every single day and wonder when she’s going to be able to breathe on her own again,” said Christopher Bulone, a partner with Dordick Law.
“Magic Mountain, as a business, seems to think that it’s OK that if people voluntarily choose to ride a roller coaster, then they’ve assumed the risk. No! They don’t assume a risk of death or catastrophic brain damage for some family fun,” said Gary Dordick, owner of Dordick Law.
Magic Mountain has previously settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Christopher Hawley. That lawsuit alleged Hawley died after riding X2 in 2022.
People wait on line to enter Plymouth Superior Court during Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial on Aug. 26, 2026, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. (Mel Musto/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — After 30 hours of deliberations spanning five days, the jury in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy has still not reached a verdict.
The extensive deliberations followed weeks of testimony concerning whether or not Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she strangled her children and attempted to take her own life in January 2023 and whether she should be held criminally liable for the killings.
On Wednesday afternoon, after the jury reported they were at an impasse for a second time in as many days, Judge William Sullivan read the jury a Tuey-Rodriguez instruction, encouraging them to continue working together toward a verdict.
The Tuey-Rodriguez instruction urges jurors to remember it is their “duty to decide this case if you can do so conscientiously,” reminding them “there is no reason to suppose that the case will ever be submitted to six persons who are more intelligent, more impartial, or more competent to decide it than you are, or that more or clearer evidence will be produced on one side or the other.”
Boston-based criminal defense attorney Peter Elikann said sending the jury back to deliberate again may force a hung jury if the deadlock continues.
“At that point, the judge has to declare a mistrial, unless he has the consent of the jury who would want to go out again, and that’s rather doubtful,” Elikann said in an interview with ABC News on Wednesday.
“This is really it. This is kind of the final push,” Elikann added.
If a mistrial is declared, one of several next steps may transpire, according to ABC News legal analyst Brian Buckmire.
“First and foremost, the defense is probably going to ask for bail, some amount of money or release, that she does not have to be incarcerated pending the prosecution decision as to whether or not they’re going to retry her,” Buckmire said in an interview Wednesday.
Buckmire said the prosecution could make the decision to retry her “right then and there” or in the near future following a mistrial declaration.
Elikann said the prosecution could also choose to drop the case, though he added, “That’s not all that likely.”
Buckmire said a second trial is a likely scenario, in his opinion.
The second option, according to the attorneys, could be plea negotiations.
“In many cases, the prosecution, after having a deadlocked jury, will kind of say to the defense, ‘Let’s compromise. We’ll break down the charges to something much lesser, and can we agree on that, that you’ll plead to something, a much more minor charge,'” Elikann said.
Buckmire said it is possible, however, that prosecutors would not want to lessen any of the charges moving forward.
Speaking to the deliberations and the jury’s inability thus far to reach a verdict in this case, Elikann said this sort of result was both rare and, in some ways, predictable.
“Most of the time, probably all the lawyers will tell you the conventional wisdom is that [an] insanity defense almost never works,” he said, adding it usually ends in a conviction.
Elikann explained that Clancy’s case was different.
“Everybody had a sense that they would never get 12 people to convict her of first-degree murder. And it was anticipated, by many people, that this would be either not guilty by reason of insanity or a hung jury,” he said.
