Ex-village bookkeeper guilty of aiding convicted official

CRIME & THE COURTS

A former bookkeeper in the Madison County village of Mount Sterling pleaded guilty Friday to a misdemeanor charge for her role in helping a former administrator steal from the public’s checkbook.

Victoria L. Sheets, who had been the village fiscal officer for longer than five years before she resigned in February 2016, pleaded guilty in Madison County Municipal Court to a single count of falsification for helping then-Village Administrator Joe Johnson lie and get his public-pension benefits before he was eligible.

Judge Eric Schooley immediately sentenced Sheets, 69. He suspended a 180-day jail sentence, but ordered her to pay $1,000 fine and perform 80 hours of community service. She will have to serve a year of probation and is barred from handling any public funds during that time.

Robert Smith, assistant chief legal counsel for Ohio Auditor Dave Yost’s office, handled the case. The auditor’s office said that while Johnson was under investigation in early 2016 for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the village, Sheets illegally backdated his paperwork for the Ohio Public Employee Retirement System. That allowed Johnson to drain his retirement account of more than $130,000 before the state could freeze it as part of the investigation.

“While Sheets did not benefit personally from her actions, what she did was illegal and nearly prevented our office from protecting the interests of Mt. Sterling taxpayers,” Yost wrote in a release announcing Sheets’ guilty plea.

Johnson was indicted in July on 30 counts accusing him of misusing village credit cards and stealing more than $720,000 from the village during his four-year tenure as administrator.

In early 2016, Johnson, then-Mayor Charlie Neff and Sheets all resigned. It was only after they left that other village officials said they realized there was a problem, Madison County Sheriff Jim Sabin said. Records show that after the trio resigned, village computers, cellphones and tablets were found missing and Neff’s office computer had been erased.

Johnson pleaded guilty earlier this year in Madison County Common Pleas Court to charges of racketeering, theft in office, money laundering and tampering with records. In exchange for his pleas, prosecutors dropped the remaining charges and agreed to not prosecute his wife.

Judge Eamon Costello sentenced Johnson March 6 to 10 years in prison and ordered that he repay the money.

“While Sheets did not benefit personally from her actions, what she did was illegal.”

— Ohio Auditor Dave Yost