Samantha Johnson appears in Brown County court, August 19, 2024. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A woman who ran a check fraud scheme — stealing more than $30,000 from a variety of companies, government agencies and a VFW post — was sentenced Friday to five years in prison.
Samantha Johnson, 36, was convicted earlier this week of 21 counts of forgery and theft. More than 80 other counts were dismissed as part of the plea deal.
Johnson was also placed on extended supervision for more than seven years by Judge Donald Zuidmulder. A final restitution amount has not been set.
Before the sentence was issued, Johnson apologized for her actions.
“I had a really bad addiction and I can’t say how I embarrassed I am of my actions. I am remorseful. Drugs make people do a lot of things, and I never used to believe it until it happened to me. All I can say is I’m not going to do it again,” Johnson said.
Judge Zuidmulder called it one of the “most stunning” crimes against property he has seen.
Police said Johnson operated a large-scale fraud scheme.
“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,” one criminal complaint states.
“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,” a criminal complaint states.
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