Samantha Johnson appears in court via video conference from the Brown County Jail Aug. 6, 2024. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Prosecutors added more counts Tuesday against a woman already facing nearly 100 charges for allegedly forging checks from local governments, businesses, a VFW post and alleged drug dealer Stephen Preisler.
Samantha Johnson, 36, was charged with two new counts, including forgery and fraud against a financial institution. She made her initial appearance on Tuesday, where a $1,000 cash bond was set in each file. She is already being held in jail, unable to post a $10,000 cash bond from previous cases. She returns to court Aug. 14 for a preliminary hearing.
She previously was charged with 97 counts, including dozens of counts of forgery, plus dozens of identity theft counts. On the already-filed cases, an Aug. 19 pre-trial conference is planned before an Aug. 21 trial date.
In the new file, Johnson allegedly altered a check from $7.34 to $987.56.
“Johnson said that after a while, people would just give her checks. Johnson admitted that once she had a routing number and account number, she could just go crazy reproducing checks. Johnson admitted that many of the checks would have had correction fluid and various areas covered up in order to retain the account and routing numbers,” the criminal complaint states.
Preisler, an author known as “Uncle Fester” for his books on how make drugs, faces a variety of drug manufacturing charges. Johnson said she knew Preisler.
“I showed Johnson an image of the John Hancock Life Insurance check and she verified that that was the check Preisler gave her. Johnson stated that Preisler was the one that “opened her mind up” by smoking meth and helping people,” the complaint states.
In one of the previous cases, Johnson faces 84 counts for 47 instances of forgery, totaling more than $33,000. Victims identified in the criminal complaint include the Brown County Jail, Shawano County Work Release Center, the Oneida Nation, a VFW post, and other businesses.
“The basement of the Porlier address where all of this evidence was seized had been occupied by Samantha M. Johnson, and numerous other individuals stated this was where she was conducting a check forgery operation. Statements obtained, interviews conducted, as well as Johnson’s name being on numerous items of evidence from this basement indicates that she, herself, was responsible for every instance of forgery in this case,” the criminal complaint states.
The transactions in that complaint date from July to November 2023.
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