KANSAS CITY, Mo.–A former credit union employee has been sentenced to prison for a scheme involving the resale of tickets to Kansas City Chiefs games.
According to court documents, Matthew Johnson, a former employee of a Kansas City area credit union that was not identified, received a two-year prison sentence for aggravated identity theft for orchestrating a financial scheme involving Kansas City Chiefs tickets, the FBI’s Kansas City Office said.
While the credit union is not identified, CommunityAmerica Credit Union is the official credit union of the Chiefs, and offers among other products “Chiefs Checking.” The CU Daily has not been able to independently confirm this is the credit union involved, but court documents also state that checks were issued with “L.G.’s signature” without “L.G.’s knowledge.” Lisa Ginter is president and CEO of CommunityAmerica Credit Union.
In his plea deal, Johnson admitted to using his position to misappropriate game tickets and submit fraudulent expense reports, the FBI said.
Transferred to Own Accounts
“After the credit union bought tickets, Johnson transferred them into his own ticketing accounts for resell or personal use without his employer’s knowledge or consent, defrauding the credit union of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” according to court documents and the FBI.
Court documents allege Johnson used third parties such as StubHub and Ticketmaster to sell the tickets and that he used fraudulent expense invoices as part of the scheme.
The court documents cite an example from June 2, 2021, in which $50,000 worth of tickets were purchased.
Additional details are available here.
