Last year, as I was reporting a story about how a Minneapolis octogenarian was swindled out of her home, an attorney for Shelley Milless pointed the finger at her ex-husband, Tim Beliveau, as the one responsible for the real estate business exposed as a fraud.

"Shelley feels horrible about the whole thing," attorney Tom Brever told Whistleblower last year. "Shelley feels horrible about having any association with her ex-husband."

The feds decided Milless had a bigger role in the business than just being married to Beliveau, who himself faces 12 federal counts of mail fraud and tax evasion. Milless pleaded guilty this week to shielding $900,000 of the business's ill-gotten proceeds from the IRS, my colleague Paul Walsh reports. No word yet on when she'll be sentenced, but she could be looking at up to five years in the federal pen.