Former CVB employee pleads guilty to stealing $4 million from agency

A judge found Johnson guilty of complicity to theft, abuse of public trust and unlawful access to a computer.

Commonwealth Attorney Rob Sanders said most of that money was then wired to overseas accounts. Sanders said the money trail "went cold in China where investigators were no longer able to track the bank transfers."

Eventually, the executive director of MeetNKY was alerted to the thefts. Johnson had altered bank records for a year to hide her thefts.

Johnson never kept any of the money she stole but continued to send funds to the scammers to try to get approximately $250,000 of her own money back that she'd already lost, according to Sanders.

"Until Ms. Johnson started taking tax dollars from her employer, she was the largest individual victim of theft I've ever seen, but now she's the largest thief."

Johnson will be sentenced December 12.