Perhaps Bridget Johnson, a 20-year employee and controller at the Northern Kentucky CVB, believed in an expansive definition of her job when she posted on her LinkedIn profile, that she was “responsible for all areas of company accounting” at the bureau. Whatever. Johnson is also responsible, law enforcement officials have charged, for trying to embezzle some $3.8 million from the organization.
Police have charged that between May 2017 and September 2018, Johnson, 58, sent online checks worth a total of at least $3,840,500 to supposed vendors. According to the charges, the individuals to whom the online checks were sent were real people, but were never vendors that provided any service for the payment they were given.
Johnson deleted the transactions from the CVB’s monthly bank statements that she presented to its board, according to the citation charging her with the alleged. But, said the leadership of bureau’s board of directors (it also goes by meetNKY) in a statement that its bank alerted them about “suspicious electronic transfers” in September. They suspended Johnson the day after they heard from the bank and then fired her on Oct. 3. She was arrested and charged by police on Nov. 16.
Johnson joined the Northern Kentucky CVB in July 1998. Previously, she was a controller at Bayless & Partners, an Atlanta-based ad agency, for nearly four years. Prior to that, she was human resources manager at Reiman/Reiman, another Atlanta ad agency.
The Northern Kentucky CVB represents a large swath of the northern part of the state, just across the Ohio River from the State of Ohio. Its offices are in Covington, Kentucky, about a half mile from Cincinnati, which is on the north side of the river.
