Samantha Johnson appears in Brown County court, August 19, 2024. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A woman who generated dozens of fraudulent checks was convicted Monday of 21 counts of forgery and identity theft.
Samantha Johnson, 36, faces sentencing Friday after pleading no contest to those counts. More than 80 other counts were dismissed as part of the plea deal. Her victims included local governments, businesses and a VFW post, with the fraud totaling more than $33,000. She was also convicted of two drug-related counts.
Prosecutors will recommend five years in prison, while the defense can argue for a shorter term, court records show.
“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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