Two down, one to go. A second suspect in the massive counterfeit coupon ring that was busted in Phoenix this summer, has changed her plea to guilty.
During a court hearing today, 42-year-old Amiko Fountain pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of counterfeiting. Additional charges of forgery and fraud will be dropped. The plea agreement matches that of co-defendant Marilyn Johnson, who changed her own plea a week and a day ago (read: “Coupon Counterfeiter Pleads Guilty”).
That leaves alleged ringleader Robin Ramirez, who has not changed her original pleas. Along with the two other women, she was also charged with forgery, fraud and counterfeiting. Investigators said she headed up the operation, acquiring tens of millions of dollars worth of counterfeit coupons, and selling them on the since-deactivated website SavvyShopperSite.com. Relatives of both Johnson and Fountain claimed Ramirez had duped the two women into helping her, giving them no indication that what they were doing was illegal. Shortly after her arrest, Phoenix’s KPHO-TV spoke with an unnamed relative of Fountain, who called her “an honest person” who had been struggling because of the bad economy. A licensed chiropractor, Fountain at some point began working for Ramirez, but the relative says she never gained financially from the scheme.
Ramirez certainly did, according to prosecutors. They say she earned millions by selling the fraudulent coupons, and cost manufacturers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue. You can read much more about the details of the case in earlier reports here on Coupons in the News.
Both Fountain and Johnson are scheduled to be sentenced in February. Unless she too changes her plea, Ramirez awaits her trial date.
