Vicki Jean Fehrs, 56, a former Mullan, Idaho, resident now living in Oregon, was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court in Coeur d'Alene, for contempt, a misdemeanor, for willfully disobeying a lawful order of a bankruptcy court, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced. Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy W. Dale sentenced Fehrs to five years probation and ordered her to pay $ 47,927.95 in restitution. Fehrs pleaded guilty to the charge on March 16, 2011.

According to court documents, Fehrs, a debtor in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filed in 2005 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Idaho, concealed her pre-bankruptcy transfer of a Mullan property to her son. After receiving a discharge in her bankruptcy case in 2006, Fehrs sold the property and kept the sale proceeds of $47,928, 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.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with assistance from the Office of the United States Trustee.