ANTIGO — Last week, a Shawano woman charged with ten counts of fraud against a financial institution failed to appear for her scheduled hearing at the Langlade County Courthouse.
Though a statewide bench warrant was issued, the woman, 36-year-old Samantha Johnson, was actually already in the Taycheedah Correctional Institution after being sentenced Aug. 23 to five years in prison in Brown County for running a check fraud scheme through which she stole more than $30,000 from companies, government agencies, and a VFW post. Langlade County officials apparently had been unaware of this.
According to the criminal complaint filed in Langlade County, however, which was filed Aug. 22, the charges against Samantha Johnson, 36, stem from 2022, when CoVantage Credit Union employees contacted the Antigo Police Department about individuals using remote deposit capture, a feature of CoVantage’s app, to commit fraud.
Through remote deposit capture, customers can deposit checks they receive from others simply by taking a photo of them. The person can then withdraw money from their own account at an ITM (interactive teller machine) — even, apparently, if the account from which the money was deposited has no money in it. Even though the checks are eventually rejected as fraudulent, people can receive up to $225 immediately.
From January to September of 2022, Antigo Police Detective Sgt. Brady Goeks investigated Johnson for withdrawing money using these nefarious means on numerous occasions and stealing what amounted to several thousand dollars.
In Feb. 2022, Johnson admitted to a detective with the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office to printing fake checks, enlisting drug addicts to create CoVantage accounts and then overdraft them, and also to using the fraudulently-obtained money for drugs.
Johnson first did this Jan. 3 in Keshena, where video from the same ITM there showed her withdrawing money five separate times throughout the morning.
“She receives money, keeps some, and passes some to other passengers in the vehicle,” the criminal complaint reads. “Det. Schultz from the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office contacted Det. Sgt. Goeks as the check in question was issued from the Inmate Trust Fund of the Shawano County Jail. There was only one check issued but it had been altered 5 times, in the amounts of $325, $325, $500, $546.57, and $500. The checks were deposited via remote capture and $225 was then withdrawn each time at the ITM for a total of $1,125.”
Johnson returned to the Keshena ITM again on June 4. She deposited five checks at approximately 2:08 p.m., then five more around 2:57 p.m., withdrawing a total of $2,250. The second batch of five checks apparently were not made out to anyone and had only two check numbers.
Johnson was caught on video withdrawing money from the fraudulent checks several more times throughout that summer, including $1,350 on June 21, $2,475 from two trips on June 23, $1,350 on June 24, and $1,800 on June 25. Several of these checks also had the same check numbers.
Johnson made several ITM runs at the end of August and beginning of September as well.
At her sentencing hearing in Brown County on Aug. 23, Johnson claimed to be sorry.
“I had a really bad addiction and I can’t say how embarrassed I am of my actions,” Johnson said. “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. I know you hear that a lot, but after sobering up, I see the error of my ways, and I’ll be ready to come out a better person.”
Judge Donald Zuidmulder said because she had never been in trouble with the law previously, Johnson likely would have only received probation — if not for “the gravity of the offense.”
“This is probably one of the most stunning crimes against property that I’ve had in my long service to the community,” Zuidmulder said. “And what I’ve come to understand is, many times we perceive that, when somebody’s home is broken into or they’re physically assaulted, they have this injury, and we tend to focus on that. But in my experience, I find as I read through all these complaints, the types of crime you commit sort of strike at the quality of life in our community, because they’re intrusions on people’s senses of security.”
Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) Director of Communications Beth Hardtke wrote in an email that it has no record of contact concerning Johnson from the Langlade County District Attorney’s Office.
Langlade County District Attorney Kelly Hays explained the mixup in an email.
“It may be that the prosecutor and commissioner at that hearing were unaware of her other county cases and did not know she was in custody elsewhere,” Hays wrote. “They won’t look for her — if the person doesn’t appear in court, a warrant is issued. We have to know where someone is to get it lined up to appear from custody elsewhere. Sometimes that just doesn’t happen.”
The Antigo Journal reached out several times to CoVantage representatives during the past several days for clarification about certain details of the case, but they did not respond.
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