FORT SMITH — An Oklahoma woman will remain in federal custody awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty Friday to two felonies.
Alys Marie Dimmitt, 66, of Muldrow, Okla., pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony and providing false information to the Internal Revenue Service, according to a plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Smith.
On the misprision count, Dimmitt admitted she failed to disclose to Postal Inspection Service officials a mailfraud scheme she was conducting with her sister and her sister’s husband.
According to West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, Ed. 2, the crime of misprision of felony, the most common definition of which is the failure to report a crime, is rarely prosecuted.
Dimmitt also pleaded guilty to filing false IRS forms reporting that five postal officials, including U.S. Postmaster General Jack Potter, received $50 million in gross income.
During a Sept. 8 detention hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge James Marschewski, Dimmitt testified she thought filing the false reports would “get us out of the system,” the plea agreement states. Some of the postal officials about whom the reports were filed were investigating the mailfraud case against her, her sister, Sharon Jeanette Henningsen, and Henningsen’s common-law husband, Timothy Shawn Donavan, both of Rudy.
Dimmitt was charged in an indictment with 15 counts of mail fraud. Henningsen and Donavan also are charged in the indictment, but because they have not been arrested and arraigned, the indictment remained under seal Tuesday. Warrants have been issued for their arrests, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Fort Smith.
Dimmitt waived the indictment to plead guilty. No sentencing date has been set.
Dimmitt was accused of recruiting people for a home business, Trail Head Options Inc., in which, after paying a hefty application fee, they were to be paid $10 for every envelope they stuffed. The government said Dimmitt and others planned to pay only for stuffed envelopes that resulted in a sale.
The Postal Service investigation began when several people complained that they had paid for but not received materials from Trail Head Options. Postal Inspector Stephanie Barrett testified at Dimmitt’s detention hearing that there were an estimated 21,000 victims in the scheme, 16,000 of whom had been identified by name and address.
Victims’ losses totaled about $2.2 million, she testified.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 10/27/2011