COEUR d'ALENE - A 56-year-old former Mullan woman admitted her guilt this week in U.S. District Court in Coeur d'Alene to a misdemeanor charge of contempt for willfully disobeying a lawful order of a bankruptcy court, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson said.

Vicki Jean Fehrs, 56, who is now living in Oregon, is scheduled to be sentenced April 20 before Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy W. Dale in Coeur d'Alene.

According to court documents, Fehrs, a debtor in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filed in August 2005 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Idaho, concealed her pre-bankruptcy transfer of a Mullan property she owned to her son to protect her interest in it from creditors. Meanwhile, she was discharging more than $500,000 in unsecured debt.

After receiving a discharge in her bankruptcy case in 2006, Fehrs sold the Mullan property and kept the sales proceeds of nearly $48,000, some of which she used to purchase a home in Washington state.

Fehrs failed to disclose the sale proceeds to the trustee or creditors in her bankruptcy case.

In June of last year, The Press reported that a Coeur d'Alene federal grand jury indicted Fehrs on four counts of bankruptcy fraud stemming from her 2005 bankruptcy filing.

With her guilty plea to the reduced charge of contempt, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the pending indictment against Fehrs after her sentencing next month.

The contempt charge carries a maximum punishment of up to six months in prison, a fine of up to $1,000, and up to one year of supervised release.

The case was investigated by the FBI with assistance from the Office of the United States Trustee.