Phone Expert Returns To Testify About Time Zone Change In Kouri Richins' Texts w/ Boyfriend

Описание: Chris Kotrodimos, a digital forensics expert, testified in Kouri Richins' trial last week about phone records he analyzed for the Summit County Attorney's Office in the investigation of Eric Richins' fatal fentanyl overdose.

He returned to the witness stand for about five minutes today (Tuesday, March 10, day 11) to testify about the timing of text messages sent on Verizon phones and the fact that Verizon records them in an eastern time zone.

The testimony is to address Kouri's ex-boyfriend Robert Josh Grossman's testimony saying he thought he'd received txts from Kouri about Eric's death earlier than the time stamps indicate.

Lindsey Chervenak, a deputy prosecutor in Summit County, Utah, questioned Kotrodimos in direct-exam. Richins' lawyers did not cross-examine him.

You can watch Kotrodimos' two-hour direct-exam on March 3 here:    • Forensic Expert Testifies About Kouri Rich...   and his one-hour cross-exam here:    • Kouri Richins' Lawyer Cross-Examines Exper...  

01:18 "So when you looked at those records, the outgoing messages for Eric Richins' phone in the Verizon records, what time was reported for an MMS outgoing from Eric Richins' phone?"
"...There was an outgoing MMS at 12:23 p.m."
"Would that be 12:23pm in Utah?"
"No."
"So what would the time of that outgoing message be for us in Utah?"
"So we're two hours behind. So it would be 10:23 a.m."

01:58 "This was previously admitted in Mr. Kotrodimos' testimony. We can publish it to the jury. We entered this exhibit through your testimony last time, and we talked about this gap in activity from Eric Richins' phone."

02:24 "If a call record or a text message, MMS showed outgoing from Eric Richins' phone at 12:23 in the raw data, you confirmed that that would have been 10:23 in Utah?"
"Correct."
"How did you verify that?"
"One just the knowledge and experience of knowing that that's how Verizon routes MMS messages, they use an eastern time zone which is consistent with their headquarters location...."

02:55 "So what you would do is, if you have a source to look at the original text, and in this case, we do, which would be Eric Richins' cell, his phone, extraction, his cell download. I would expect to see, based on the time difference, an outgoing MMS text at 10:23 a.m. versus 12:23 p.m. and I did find that there was an outgoing message at 10:23 a.m., an MMS message to that number, and it was a photo."

04:00 "So now that we're talking about time zones, describe for the jury how we get to the times that are listed in all of these text bubbles..."

These are texts from the day Richins died, from Kouri to her boyfriend Josh Grossman.

05:14 "So for each of the messages that the state submitted, in this case, they have been adjusted to local time?"
"Yes."
"Okay, those are all my questions."

Background:

Kouri Richins, 35, is accused of fatally poisoning her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl at their home in Kamas, Utah, in March 2022. After he died, she self-published a children's book she authored titled "Are You With Me?" about coping with grief.

Eric Richins, 39, was found dead in their home on March 4, 2022.

Prosecutors allege Kouri dropped a lethal dose of fentanyl in a Moscow Mule cocktail she prepared for him. They say she was motivated by money because she owed nearly $5 million to lenders and had changed her husband's life insurance policies prior to his death while also taking out a home equity line of credit without his knowledge. She also was in a romantic relationship with another man.

Her defense is that her husband died of a self-inflicted overdose and his family pressured police to implicate her.

You can watch the prosecution's opening statement here    • Greed & Lust Drove Kouri Richins To Poison...   and the defense opening statement here:    • Defense Says Kouri Richins' Husband Overdo...  

Prosecutors allege she previously tried to murder him by poisoning his sandwich on Valentine's Day 2022, which her husband told a friend about.

Richins' criminal charges in Summit County, Utah, include aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, forgery and insurance fraud.

Her trial is scheduled to last five weeks. Judge Richard Mrazik in Utah's 3rd Judicial District is presiding at the Silver Summit Justice Center near Park City.

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