Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein's wife, Kim Rothstein, pleaded guilty on Friday on her conspiracy charge to commit money laundering after it was discovered that she and her pals concealed more than $1 million worth of jewelry from the federal government, including a 12.08-carat diamond ring worth 450 grand.
Her hubby is currently serving 50 years in federal prison for orchestrating the largest investment fraud in South Florida history.
Kim's former attorney Scott Saidel and her friend Stacie Weisman had cooked up a scheme to sell the jewelry and then persuade Mr. Ponzi himself to lie during a sworn deposition when he was asked about the diamond ring.
All three pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiring to commit money laundering, obstructing justice, and witness tampering today as part of a plea deal.
Kim, 38, purportedly tried to stash and hide from the feds an intense yellow VS2 radiant-cut colored diamond, which is supposedly very rare and very large (the ring, not the feds).
Scott had purchased the ring for $403,012 back in July 2008.
These diamonds are graded in the most pretentiously named scale in the history of scales: Fancy. Intense. Vivid.
Kim's ring is labeled as Intense.
Hiding a $450,000 ring from the feds and then pretending it never existed is far cry from the $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme her husband put together, but it's still a pretty big deal.
Now Kim will be sentenced on April 19 by U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenbaum and is facing up to five years in prison.
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