{"id":2442979,"date":"2019-04-15T16:56:01","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T22:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/cops-former-city-councilman-stole-2-4-million-from-aspen-skiing-co\/"},"modified":"2019-04-16T09:26:48","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T15:26:48","slug":"cops-former-city-councilman-stole-2-4-million-from-aspen-skiing-co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/cops-former-city-councilman-stole-2-4-million-from-aspen-skiing-co\/","title":{"rendered":"Cops: Former city councilman stole $2.4 million from Aspen Skiing Co."},"content":{"rendered":"
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A former Aspen city councilman and mayoral candidate allegedly stole and sold more than $2.4 million worth of skis, snowboards and other goods while working as an Aspen Skiing Co. executive for 17 years, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

Derek Johnson, 51, and his wife, Kerri Johnson, 48, were charged Monday with theft of more than $1 million, a felony on par with attempted murder. The couple also were charged with burglary, cybercrime and conspiracy, which are all felonies.<\/p>\n

Derek Johnson, who was fired by Skico in the wake of the theft allegations in December, is currently working as a delivery driver for an Aspen restaurant, while he and his wife and three children are surviving mostly on savings, Kenneth Citron, his lawyer, said Monday morning in Pitkin County District Court.<\/p>\n

Citron asked District Judge Chris Seldin to grant the Johnsons personal recognizance bonds \u2014 which would have meant they could be let out of jail without posting any money \u2014 because the couple have \u201creally limited financial resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a man who has dedicated his entire life \u2014 other than to his profession and family \u2014 to this community,\u201d Citron said, noting that Johnson has sat on numerous boards including the Aspen Chamber Resort Association, the Snowmass Village Resort Association and the Red Brick Center for the Arts.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Don Nottingham, however, said that Johnson was filling those community roles \u2014 which also included coaching kids\u2019 hockey and football \u2014 while he was allegedly stealing more than $2 million \u201cover a lengthy amount of time.\u201d In addition, the Johnsons are each facing up to 24 years in prison if convicted, which could provide a compelling reason for them to flee, Nottingham said.<\/p>\n

Seldin noted that he initially set the bond lower than the prescribed amount, and decided Monday to keep the Johnson\u2019s bonds at $10,000 cash or surety. As of Monday afternoon, neither Johnson was listed as an inmate on the Pitkin County Jail\u2019s online roster.<\/p>\n

Neither Johnson spoke in court Monday.<\/p>\n

Johnson helped found the D&E Snowboard Shop and sold it to Skico in 2001, when he was kept on as managing director of the company\u2019s retail-rental division. He also served on the Aspen City Council between 2009 and 2013 and ran for mayor in 2013.<\/p>\n

Skico fired Johnson in December, calling the situation \u201ctragic\u201d and \u201cvery painful and personal,\u201d though company officials declined to comment further. Johnson, at the time, said his firing was \u201ca private employment matter\u201d and also refused to comment further.<\/p>\n

Court documents unsealed Monday indicate that Skico\u2019s security manager told Aspen police Nov. 9 about an anonymous tip the company\u2019s human resources department had received about Johnson stealing demo skis and selling them through an eBay account called \u201csportandski.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spreadsheets found on Johnson\u2019s computer at his home showed that between 2010 and 2018, he and his wife listed $2,146,180 in total sales from the eBay account, according to the court documents.<\/p>\n

In addition, police found more than $224,000 worth of skis and snowboards in a storage unit rented by the Johnsons. That gear was turned back over to Skico officials, the documents state. Finally, the couple also billed Skico nearly $42,000 since November 2015 for ski boxes they used to send the allegedly stolen Skico skis to their eBay customers.<\/p>\n

That is a total of $2,415,163 in alleged theft, according to the Johnsons\u2019 arrest warrant affidavits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not find any receipts or documentation relating to the procurement of ski equipment,\u201d Aspen police Detective Adriano Minniti wrote in an arrest warrant affidavit filed in Pitkin County District Court.<\/p>\n

Skico hired an Aspen law firm to investigate the situation, and provided Aspen police with a copy of the report.<\/p>\n

The investigation led to an employee hired in 2017 to better track company inventory. During the 2017 inventory, the employee discovered 150 pairs of skis missing and informed his supervisor, according to the documents. The supervisor asked Johnson about it, who told him not to worry about it, so the situation was forgotten.<\/p>\n

The next year, the same employee organized the inventory of skis into categories, then noticed that 80 pairs of high-end demo skis later went missing, the documents state. Security camera footage then showed Johnson taking the skis from racks the employee organized and putting them into a Skico box truck.<\/p>\n

The box truck was equipped with GPS, and was tracked to Johnson\u2019s home and then to his storage unit, the documents state.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on existing evidence, Johnson would take skis from ASC\u2019s inventory and he or his wife would deliver them to a small warehouse in Aspen that they rented,\u201d according to the report\u2019s summary quoted in the court documents. \u201cIt appears that their practice was to remove any stickers identifying the skis as ASC property, photograph them and post them on eBay for sale by auction.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo facilitate delivery of skis to purchasers, the Johnsons used ski boxes that were purchased and paid for by ASC.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Johnsons billed Skico more than $6,000 for the ski boxes in August 2018 alone, according to the documents. In 2018, the couple allegedly sold 580 pairs of skis to the tune of nearly $140,000. Tax documents found on ASC servers indicated the couple reported $495,000 in sales in 2017.<\/p>\n

In addition, a forensic audit found that more than $1 million in inventory was missing since 2008, and that \u201cthe ski sales increased in the last couple of years and \u2026 that the loss incurred last year was approximately $500,000,\u201d according to the documents.<\/p>\n

In its report, the law firm said it didn\u2019t know if Johnson procured ski equipment from other sources besides Skico. Johnson allegedly told the firm he had other sources prior to 2012, though the only source he named later denied selling him anything, according to the court documents.<\/p>\n

In a file found on his computer titled \u201ctimeline,\u201d Johnson said the eBay situation started as a way for D&E to reduce used inventory and was run, at first, with Skico knowledge, according to the documents.<\/p>\n

The operation wound down when his children were young and when he was on the city council, then was brought back and \u201cintended to (be) run above board,\u201d the documents state. It eventually \u201cspiraled out of control,\u201d Johnson wrote in the file, according to the documents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was miserable with role at ASC (we were trapped),\u201d he wrote, the documents state. \u201cKerri was not happy with her work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson told Aspen police that senior Skico executives did not know he had re-started the eBay business and that his wife was the only other person involved, though he was solely responsible for obtaining the skis, according to the documents.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral times he volunteered that \u2018Kerri didn\u2019t know where I got the inventory,\u2019\u201d the documents state. She did know the source of the ski boxes, however, according to the documents.<\/p>\n

According to documents found on Derek Johnson\u2019s computer, the Johnsons have nearly $102,000 in credit card debt and owe more than $294,000 in other debts.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Johnson\u2019s lawyer said the couple own only their employee housing unit in Aspen and no other property.<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A former Aspen city councilman and mayoral candidate allegedly stole and sold more than $2.4 million worth of skis, snowboards and other goods while working as an Aspen Skiing Co. executive for 17 years, according to court documents. Derek Johnson, 51, and his wife, Kerri Johnson, 48, were charged Monday with theft of more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2442979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-16 17:11:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}