Kellie L. Johnson, former First Community Bank “FCB” vice president during her nearly 25-year tenure at the bank, embezzled customer funds according to a guilty plea in May 2023.
Johnson admitted to embezzling about $2.3 million between July 2013 and June 2023. Through diverting money from the bank’s Federal Reserve account, Johnson used bank funds to pay personal expenses.
To conceal her scheme, Johnson falsified transactions to reconcile the balance of the Federal Reserve account in FCB’s general ledger and deleted her ACH transactions. The funds were used primarily for credit card bills via roughly 273 fraudulent ACH transactions over 10 years. The fraud was discovered when the Federal Reserve contacted the bank president about an overdrawn ACH account. After being confronted, Johnson provided a fraudulent bank statement showing a positive balance.
There was also a case days prior involving Khalila Cooper, a teller at the same bank from October 2021 until she was fired in February 2024, allegedly embezzling roughly $34,000.00 from the bank. The Fed took a strong stance in response and prohibited Cooper from being involved with any federally regulated financial institution or serving as an institution-affiliated party. Having two exclusive fraud cases in the same institution uncovered within days shows a lack of thorough oversight and proper measures of authentication. Both are important factors necessary in creating procedures to prevent fraud.
Photo by Jonathan Borba
