Former Redmond Resident Sentenced to Four Years for Wire Fraud

A federal judge sentenced 42-year-old Sarah Jane Johnson, formerly of Redmond, to four years in prison Monday for fraudulently directing nearly $1 million in payroll funds from her employer to her own personal banking accounts.

According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Western Washington office, Johnson was working in SeaTac as head of human resources at Driessen, a Netherlands-based manufacturer of airplane parts, when she developed a scheme to redirect payroll funds to her own accounts.

At the company Johnson was responsible for removing terminated employees from Driessen's payroll system. Beginning in 2005, she started to keep former employees on the payroll for a period of time while she changed their direct deposit information to one of her own nine personal banking accounts.

In all, authorities say Johnson fraudulently redirected $986,481 to herself and kept $715,000 after paying federal and state taxes.

Driessen discovered the fradulent activities when Johnson left the company in 2010 for unrelated reasons. Johnson's crimes resulted in a major financial loss for the company, accounting for half of losses in 2007 and 2009 and forcing the company to lay off employees and freeze salaries, the news release stated.

In addition to four years in prison, Johnson was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $811,379 in restitution.