Crime leader pleads guilty

Cybil Imholt, 31, was an example of what a young divorced mother could accomplish.

But Imholt said Thursday that in 2004 she turned to something to help give her a boost of energy as she juggled the strains of raising three children, working and trying to go to school.

That boost came from methamphetamine. It took root and, combined with her office-managerial skills, turned Imholt into one of the most prolific fraudulent-check making machines that local investigators say they have ever seen.

“I am just very sorry for what I’ve done,” Imholt told Superior Court Judge Ellen Clark. “Every choice I have made has hurt everyone around me.”

Deputy Prosecutor Bob Sargent agreed to dismiss 43 counts of forgery against Imholt in exchange for her pleading guilty to one count of leading organized crime.

In this case, Imholt admitted to taking stolen check numbers and creating fraudulent checks that she would then give to people to cash at commercial establishments and elsewhere across the region. She would then get back 50 percent of the proceeds, Sargent said.

Imholt was charged with directing four people, but she previously told police that as many as 60 thieves and car prowlers would feed her the information that silently destroyed the credit ratings of scores of victims.

“We found garbage bags of shredded (forged) checks,” Spokane County sheriff’s Sgt. Steve Barbieri said. “We are comfortable in saying that there are hundreds of victims we don’t even know about.

“Cybil wasn’t the one who broke into the cars or homes. But she gave (the thieves) the incentive to do it, because she gave them a way to make money off of it.”

Imholt is scheduled to plead guilty today to about three dozen more felony charges, including forging checks stolen from the wife of Spokane County Jail Commander Jerry Brady.

Sargent said he agreed to dismiss the 43 counts of forgery on today’s plea to send a message. If she had gone to trial on those charges alone, Imholt – who had no prior criminal history – would have faced between 22 and 29 months in prison.

But the single charge of leading organized crime netted her 51 months in prison.

Imholt’s attorney, Bevan Maxey, said his client graduated high school from St. Maries, Idaho, and worked in business offices. “She was a real whiz at that type of work,” he said.

But she started using meth, and within a year her life had completely turned upside down. Imholt entered an Alford plea, meaning that she did not admit to the crime but acknowledged that there was enough evidence to likely convict her.

“One thing we are not denying is that she was in fact involved in creating fraudulent checks and giving them to other people,” Maxey said.

Judge Clark asked Imholt how she let her life spin out of control so quickly.

Imholt said that after she used meth she couldn’t give it up. “It makes you give up everything,” she said. “I just know that I’m sorry.”

The judge described a recent experience where she witnessed a banker refuse to cash a man’s cashier’s check because of so many stolen checks being passed in the area.

“Ma’am, understand that people you don’t even know are affected by these kinds of actions,” Clark told Imholt. “You obviously have a lot of friends and family who love you and care about you. Don’t disappoint them again.”