LINCOLN — Aubrey Trail, a person of interest in the death of Lincoln resident Sydney Loofe, joined his girlfriend in entering a guilty plea Tuesday to unrelated federal charges of defrauding a Kansas couple out of $375,000.
Trail, 51, and his 24-year-old girlfriend, Bailey Boswell, had been scheduled to stand trial Tuesday on 14 counts of transporting stolen goods across state lines.
The pair, according to a federal prosecutor, convinced a couple from Hiawatha, Kansas, in 2016 to give them $375,646 over several months to facilitate the purchase of a gold coin that Trail had grossly overvalued.
Both Trail and Boswell agreed to plead guilty to one of the 14 counts, each of which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a $250,000 fine or both. U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl Zwart also told Trail it was likely that he would be required to pay restitution to the victims of their scheme.
Trail and Boswell are scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 3.
Meanwhile, federal and state authorities say the investigation into the death of Loofe, who worked at a Lincoln Menard's store, is continuing.
Loofe, 23, disappeared in November after going on a date with Boswell that was set up via the dating app Tinder. Her body was found Dec. 4 in a farming area north of Edgar, in south-central Nebraska.
Trail has told reporters in telephone calls that he suffocated Loofe but claimed her death was not intentional. He once told The World-Herald that he and a couple of women who traveled with him regularly participated in sexual fantasies, and had a special room for such role playing.
Trail has a criminal record that includes two stints in Nebraska prisons for forgery and passing bad checks in Pierce and Dawson Counties.
Last week, an FBI spokesman said he had no idea when the investigation into Loofe's death would be completed.
