Bloomington woman charged with swindling non-profit kids’ sports org
By Crime Watch MN, April 2, 2024
Five years after the former treasurer of the Bloomington, Minn., FastPitch Association (BFA) allegedly began stealing over $130,000 from the organization’s bank account, she’s finally been charged.
Amy Nicole Johnson, now 46, was arrested in June 2020 as a suspect in the theft but was ultimately released without being charged at the time.
Now, charges filed today (Tuesday) in Hennepin County District court charge Johnson with one felony count of theft-by-swindle.
Charges say that representatives of BFA reported to police in June 2020 that Johnson, who was the sole treasurer at the time, had stolen thousands of dollars from the organization’s bank account.
The investigation revealed that between February 22, 2019 and May 27, 2020, Johnson stole over $131,000 from the BFA bank account, charges say.
BFA members told police that in the fall of 2019 and early 2020, Johnson began acting suspiciously in her role as treasurer, including failing to provide a budget report, making excuses about why she could not produce a budget report, and stating that she had checks at her home that need to be deposited into the BFA account.
Given Johnson’s suspicious behavior, other BFA representatives went directly to the BFA’s bank, the Richfield Bloomington Credit Union (RBCU), to check on the account’s status. RBCU advised the representatives that the account had a balance of $37.64. The representatives told police that they believed the account should have held approximately $90,000 to $110,000.
One of the representatives spoke with Johnson about the missing funds. In a telephone conversation with Johnson on June 1, 2020, the representative asked Johnson what was going on with the BFA account and said Johnson could confide in them. Johnson began crying and said she didn’t know if she should talk to the representative and added “I’m not a bad person.”
Johnson said it had been the worst year of her life and her father had passed away. Johnson said that she had been waiting on a life insurance policy check in the amount of $250,000 following her father’s death, and she seemed to imply throughout the conversation that a portion of the life insurance funds would be used to replace the money stolen from BFA’s account.
Johnson made additional statements such as “Nothing has gone how it was supposed to go,” “I had no intentions of trying to hurt anyone,” “I had this plan where everything was supposed to work out and everything just got messed up,” “I’m disgusted with myself,” and finally, “I’m so sorry.”
In June 2020, Johnson acknowledged her role and responsibilities as treasurer to investigators. Johnson was asked about various cash withdrawals and claimed they were for legitimate purposes or done erroneously by her accidental use of the BFA card, or that cash was needed for change at events.
When asked what she did with all of the money, Johnson said “I told you a lot of it was used… just for my family” and she agreed that it went to help pay bills.
Records from the BFA and RBCU showed that Johnson was added to the BFA’s bank account as an authorized signer on February 22, 2019. BFA representatives reviewed the bank records and compared them to legitimate invoices, records, and their event schedule. Many of the unauthorized transactions were cash withdrawals from a bank branch, and in the bank deposit slips, Johnson would regularly put in descriptions that did not match legitimate BFA events or invoices. Many additional transactions were ATM cash withdrawals from ATMs throughout Hennepin County.
The investigation revealed transactions in the following amounts totaling approximately $131,676.65:
— $621.33 in checks or debit card purchases for personal use
— $10,208.95 in ATM cash withdrawals
— $120,846.37 in cash withdrawals
Johnson has been ordered to appear in court on April 16 at 1:30 p.m. Court records do not yet list an attorney for Johnson.
Note: Johnson has been charged by summons with an order to appear in court (as opposed to an arrest warrant), therefore, there is no booking photo available yet.
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