A former vice president of First Community Bank in Cullman, Alabama, has been sentenced to five years in prison for her role in an embezzlement scheme. The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Prim F. Escalona.
Kellie L. Johnson, 54, received a sentence of 60 months in prison followed by 60 months of supervised release from U.S. District Court Judge Liles C. Burke. Johnson pleaded guilty to bank embezzlement in May.
According to court documents, Johnson worked at First Community Bank for about 25 years. Between July 2013 and June 2023, she took money from the bank’s Federal Reserve account to pay personal expenses, mainly credit card bills. To hide her actions, Johnson falsified transactions to balance the Federal Reserve account in the bank’s general ledger and deleted Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions she had made. She also changed account statements from the Federal Reserve that she was supposed to give to the bank president and auditors.
The scheme came to light when the bank president got a call from the Federal Reserve stating that the bank’s ACH account was overdrawn. When asked for an updated statement, Johnson gave him a fake document showing a positive balance instead of an overdraft.
Over ten years, Johnson carried out around 273 fraudulent ACH transactions totaling more than $2.3 million. The scheme also cost the bank $138,185.40 in lost interest income on its Federal Reserve account.
The case was investigated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura D. Hodge.
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