Placer County woman to turn over cash, designer bags in plea deal with feds
Myra Boleche Minks, who prosecutors said operated with two co-conspirators out of a house in Loomis, admitted that she purchased marijuana in California and sent it to Georgia, Nevada, Texas and other states. The weed was either stuffed into suitcases and carried on commercial airline flights by couriers who worked for the group, or sent via shipping companies, the plea agreement filed Tuesday says.
According to the agreement with prosecutors, the sales generated cash, which was either brought back to the house in Loomis in suitcases, shipped back or deposited in banks by the group's associates. Minks admitted that she used the proceeds from the sales to buy luxury goods including an 18-karat white gold ring that featured a pear-shaped 7.15-carat diamond and 20 smaller diamonds.
The list of 73 items she agreed to forfeit included nearly $40,000 in cash, several pieces of jewelry and dozens of purses by Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada, Yves St. Laurent and others.
In addition to the marijuana sales, Minks also pleaded guilty to impersonating government officials on several occasions.
In April 2020, after two people were shot at on a freeway in Oakland, Minks called the hospital where they were taken, saying she was a DEA agent named Amanda Wilkins and asking whether the car the two had been traveling in was being searched, according to prosecutors. She also sought information from the California Highway Patrol about the investigation, again posing as Wilkins.
On another occasion, Minks toured a house in the Placer County community of Newcastle with co-conspirator Quinten Moody, who has already pleaded guilty in the case, the agreement says. When she learned that someone else had made an offer on the property, she impersonated an FBI agent in an effort to get them to drop the deal, the agreement says.
Minks also posed as an assistant U.S. attorney to get information about a co-conspirator who was arrested in Georgia, according to prosecutors. She identified herself as a Secret Service agent when trying to pry information about a criminal investigation in the town of Colma in San Mateo County and a federal prosecutor seeking information about a murder in San Francisco.
A separate scheme involved identity theft and efforts to obtain California unemployment benefits, the agreement says.
Minks is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 5. She faces up to 40 years in prison and a $5 million fine for the marijuana distribution charge, and three years of incarceration and a $250,000 fine for each of seven counts of impersonating an officer or employee of the United States. She faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for a mail fraud charge related to the unemployment insurance scam, and two years and a fine of up to $250,000 for the identity theft charge.
Moody was sentenced in 2023 to 84 months in prison.
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