Kouri Richins is now being linked to a dark secret involving one of the most influential figures in the U.S

It didn’t matter that he was a handyman down on his luck. She wanted him above all else and was quite willing to commit the ultimate crime if it meant she could spend the rest of her life with him.

She thought she knew the perfect way to get rid of her husband – drugs in his evening cocktail.

But it didn’t work out that way and now Kouri Richins, 35, will spend the rest of her days behind bars, found guilty of murdering her husband with a fentanyl-laced Moscow Mule in a plot to get her hands on his $4 million estate and start over with her lover.

The mom of three hung her head as she was convicted on Monday of five felonies in connection with the March 2022 death of Eric Richins, 39.

And the guilty verdict was in no small part because of the testimony of that lover, Josh Grossmann, and the mountain of evidence describing their steamy affair and the plans they had for the future.

Grossmann, 43, had never cooperated with prosecutors, the Daily Mail learned, but he broke his silence during a highly-emotional moment at Richins’ Park City, Utah murder trial.

Wiping away tears with his head in his hands Grossmann revealed their secret texts and a chilling conversation the two lovers shared just days after her husband’s death, when Richins asked him how it felt to kill someone.

The Iraq War veteran’s forbidden fling with Richins hit the skids soon after.

Grossmann had been down on his luck since his service and had spent the past three years living out of a truck, making it difficult for investigators to find him.

Josh Grossmann was visibly uncomfortable and upset during his testimony against his former lover Kouri Richins. He kept glancing over at his ex but there was no glimmer of emotion from the now convicted killer as she sat at the defense table and watched him

Richins killed her husband Eric Richins, 39, with fentanyl-laced pills dissolved in a cocktail in 2022

Grossmann’s mugshot from an arrest in Payson, Utah, on Jan. 20, 2024

He has had multiple run-ins with the cops and in police reports he was listed as ‘transient’ while others note that addresses and phone numbers that had once worked were invalid.

The most serious incident took place on October 21, 2022 when Grossmann rented a 19ft scissor lift and flatbed trailer from a branch of Home Depot in Salt Lake City – and failed to return them.

After ignoring demand letters for eight months, cops got in touch in June 2023 – only to be told by Grossmann that he thought Home Depot had their property back and he would be in touch to tell them how to get it.

But he never was, according to police. Calls to his phone found it was disconnected, while the address he provided on the rental paperwork turned out to be ‘not valid’.

Grossmann subsequently pleaded guilty to one count of theft – a class A misdemeanor in Utah – and was handed a probation term.

But despite his legal woes, Grossmann continued to defy the law and was busted in February 2023 for having expired tags.

Court papers seen by the Daily Mail show Grossmann still has a warrant out for his arrest in that case and has not made a court appearance or paid a fine.

Despite that, in April the same year, he was collared for driving without a license and again for having expired tags – this time in Saratoga Springs, Utah.

Grossmann, an Iraq war veteran, has been down on his luck and has had multiple run-ins with the cops in the intervening years since his affair with Richins ended

Text messages displayed in court show Richins exchanging flirty texts with her lover Josh Grossman before her husband Eric’s death

Richins had fantasized about getting divorced and having a future with her secret boyfriend

After failing to show up at court, a warrant was issued for his arrest and he was eventually grabbed by cops in January 2024 and booked into the Utah County Jail where he spent a single night.

Meanwhile to the outside world, Richins looked like the perfect mom and wife – a successful professional specializing in flipping luxury homes.

But in texts before Eric’s death, she spoke to Grossmann of her dream that they could be together. In the days after, of her wish to make him her new husband and their upcoming vacation to a luxury Caribbean resort.

She had confided in friends about feeling ‘trapped’ in her marriage, with jurors hearing from one friend who testified Richins said that ‘in many ways it would be better if [Eric] were dead.’

With her husband gone, prosecutors argued Richins believed she would finally be able to start afresh with her lover and also get her hands on a much-needed cash injection from her husband’s estate.

The texts between the erstwhile lovers came under scrutiny after Richins’s trial began with prosecutors highlighting one message she sent on the night of Eric’s alleged murder, that included a GIF of two people kissing and read: ‘I love you’.

The 43-year-old Iraq war veteran wiped away tears and put his head in his hands as jurors heard about their secret texts and a chilling conversation the two lovers shared just days after her husband’s death

Grossmann broke down as his texts with Kouri Richins were shown in court

The lovers were once so close, they discussed marriage, according to papers filed by the prosecution.

Although Richins consulted a divorce lawyer in January 2022, she ultimately decided not to proceed.

That, however, wasn’t enough to stop her from making plans to go on a luxury trip to the Secrets Resort on the Caribbean island of St. Martin with Grossmann, which she had booked for April 20 – six weeks after her husband died.

In the end, the pair didn’t go thanks to the fallout from Eric’s death.

‘If I was divorced right now and ask you to marry me tomorrow, you would?’ Richins texted her lover in February 2022, just weeks before she poisoned her husband.

Multiple texts, exchanged between the lovers in the lead-up and aftermath of Eric’s death, were shown to jurors, discussing their romance (Richins’s messages are in blue, Grossmann’s in green)

They spoke about the deal again on March 3, and Grossmann sent her a GIF of a man and woman kissing

She added: ‘I just want to lay on the couch and cuddle you. Watch a murder documentary and snuggle!’

Two weeks later, she texted Grossmann: ‘Life is going to be different I promise’, adding: ‘I hate your hard days. I wish I could be there to turn them around for you.

‘Can I try Friday? Give me a few days? Hang in there until then please?’

The pair also exchanged messages discussing divorce with Richins writing: ‘I’m in love with a man that’s not my husband’ and ‘I want to but I can’t break up my family.

‘It’s having your cake and eating it too. I do just want to love you. I do love you.’

‘I thought you were getting a divorce,’ he allegedly replied.

In the end, Grossmann only hung on for another eight months before being kicked to the curb by his former lover in November 2022, when she booted him out of a condo she had an interest in in Sarasota Springs.