Kelsey Brunner/The Aspen Times
While admitting that not everything about their online business selling second-hand skis seemed kosher, Kerri Johnson on Tuesday laid the blame for the years-long $6 million scheme squarely on her husband’s shoulders.
“Looking back, there were indications that something was off,” Johnson said during her sentencing hearing in Pitkin County District Court. “But I made the decision to trust (my husband) and that was my mistake.”
That decision – coupled with the magnitude and length of the theft from Aspen Skiing Co. – led District Judge Chris Seldin to sentence Johnson, 49, to 90 days in the Pitkin County Jail, five years of probation and 300 hours of community service for her role in the scheme.
“There were questions she should have asked,” Seldin said, including why the $3 million in income they made over more than a dozen years was never reported. “There’s sufficient evidence to justify a punitive sentence.”
Johnson was not taken into custody after Tuesday’s hearing because Seldin allowed her to begin serving her jail sentence Friday at 7 p.m.
Johnson’s husband, Derek Johnson, is a former Skico executive who was in charge of the company’s rental/retail division for more than 15 years. During the course of that employment, he stole more than 13,000 pairs of skis from the company valued at about $6 million and sold them on eBay for about $3 million.
Derek Johnson pleaded guilty to felony theft and was sentenced last month to six years in prison. He is currently incarcerated at the Sterling Correctional Facility, Colorado’s largest prison located in the northeast corner of the state, where his estimated earliest eligibility for parole is December 2022, according to online prison records.
This is a developing story that will be updated.