CK's testimony thus far
1:58 p.m. Kouri called the IRS three times on Feb. 11, 2022. On the same day, Kouri and Carmen communicated with each other. An exhibit is shown displaying cell phone tower mapping of texts between Kouri and Carmen on Feb. 11.
1:56 p.m. All of the text messages have been deleted on the phones. They just have records showing the text messages were made, but the actual content is gone. Chervenak admits call detail records for Kouri. Eric Richins’ name is on the record because he was the account holder.
1:53 p.m. Sidebar over. Judge allows the exhibit in and we briefly see it on screen. Chervenak asks about communication between Carmen and Kouri. They were communicating from January 2022 through March 15, 2022. There were 800 text messages between the two of them during that time. That’s 10-11 text messages per day. Between March 16, 2022, and the end of the year, Kotrodimos says there were about 600-650 text messages between Kouri and Carmen. That’s about three text messages per day. About a 70% decrease.
1:48 p.m. Defense objects to the exhibit showing the vacation reservation. Judge asks attorneys for a sidebar.
1:44 p.m. Kotrodimos says Kouri and Grossman texted “daily, with a few exceptions” beginning in September 2020. On one of Kouri’s phones, the majority of the communication was only with Grossman. Kotrodimos got a lot of information on that communication from Grossman’s phone, not Kouri’s. Kotrodimos located a vacation reservation found inside Kouri’s device.
1:42 p.m. Chervenak shows the witness three text messages between Kouri and Eric at three different times: Dec. 2020, June 2021 and January 2022. She also asks him to review text threads from different time periods.
1:39 p.m. Kouri had a silver iPhone and a blue iPhone at the same time. On the blue iPhone, there were no mass deletions like the previous phones. Kotrodimos also viewed an extraction for Carmen Lauber’s phone. Kotrodimos says hundreds of texts and dozens of calls had been deleted. Kotrodimos also viewed an extraction of Josh Grossman’s phone. Grossman was Kouri’s boyfriend.
1:38 p.m. Kouri began using a new silver device starting on April 14, 2022. She ported over her old number to the new phone. There were some deletions noted, but not in the same manner as the previous phone, Kotrodimos says. “There were not big chunks of hundreds of texts deleted.”
1:36 p.m. On Kouri’s phone, there was evidence of deletions between Jan. 1 through mid-March 2022, Kotrodimos says. “Hundreds of text messages” were missing from the phone along with call logs and web history information.
1:33 p.m. Chervenak admits an exhibit showing activity on Kouri’s three phones. Kouri had two numbers on one phone. One of her numbers was a voiceover IP number that used internet data, so that information typically would not show up on cell phone call records.
1:30 p.m. Kotrodimos found text messages between Eric and Kouri regarding THC gummy use. There were three conversations. One in November 2021, two in January 2022. Chervenak has text message exchanges Eric and Kouri about the gummies shown to Kotrodimos. Outside of THC, he found no communication between Eric and Kouri about buying drugs or any talk of illicit drugs.
1:26 p.m. Kotrodimos began working on this case in May 2023. He became familiar with what the people in the case looked like because he saw a lot of photos on their phones. Chervenak asks about Eric Richins’ phone. He reviewed the report from Eric’s phone and did not observe any mass deletions.
1:23 p.m. Kotrodimos says once a file is “vacuumed out” from a system file, you likely won’t be able to find the file. Even if a text message is deleted from a phone, it won’t change anything on the receiving end of the person getting the text. Different cell phone companies maintain their records for various lengths of time. Verizon keeps records for 18-24 months, but only keeps location data for about a year. AT&T and T-Mobile keep that information for a longer period of time, Kotrodimos says. A user cannot access their information – they are business records maintained by the carriers.
1:20 p.m. The information cannot be manipulated or changed during the cell phone extraction. It’s possible a phone is extracted more than once. Once the extraction is done, a report will generate showing text messages, photos, calls, etc. It can also show if an item has been previously deleted from the device as an active file. The software is able to find the item in a database. It’s not possible on all items the user deletes.
1:19 p.m. Kotrodimos explains how he is able to get the information from Cellebrite. Cellebrite is the most commonly used program. It’s been used in other investigations, including the Chad and Lori Daybell murder cases.
1:16 p.m. When analyzing phone data in this case, Kotrodimos says he examined the phones and the call detail records. The call detail records are stored by the cell phone carrier. The record contains a time stamp, who the communication was between, the duration of the phone call and the cell phone tower information.
1:14 p.m. Prosecutor Lindsay Chervenak asks about his professional background. She asks about digital forensics and his experience. His speciality is mostly phones and some computers. He is Cellebrite certified and is trained in location analysis with cell phone data.
1:12 p.m. Next witness is Chris Kotrodimos. He’s the owner of M20 Solutions. He consults with prosecutors for his job. He has an extensive history in law enforcement. He evaluated phone records in this case.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three boys, is accused of fatally poisoning her husband, Eric Richins, in 2022. She is on trial in Summit County, Utah, on charges of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, insurance fraud and forgery. Today is the sixth day of the trial. It is scheduled...
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