U.S. Attorney Bryan Schroder announced on Friday sentencing in the largest embezzlement prosecution in the state after the conviction and sentencing of the Naknek Electric Association’s former General Manager.

NEA’s former General Manager, 60-year-old Donna Vukich was sentenced on her conviction of embezzlement of federal funds and filing a false tax return to 34 months in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty in January.

According to court documents, as General Manager from 2011 until 2015 Vukich useda company-owned credit account to pay unauthorized personal expenses on the company credit card then used funds from the  Electric Association to pay those charges. 

“The unauthorized expenditures included paying for travel, for her daughter’s college tuition, cash advances, and entertainment items for her, her family, and friends. Vukich spent approximately $51,000 at Norwegian Cruise Lines, approximately $62,000 on Alaska Airlines flights, approximately $16,000 at Little Creek Casino Hotel and Resort in Washington, and approximately $7,000 at dōTERRA,” the  Department of Justice revealed.

In order to attempt to hide her unauthorized expenditures, Vukich, who did the financial reporting and oversaw the identification and assignment of expenses to various accounts, she assigned her personal expenditures to those various accounts in the general ledger.

In order to further cover up her illegal conversion of funds, Vukich would file false tax returns of the years of 2011 to 2015. Schroder said that the government took a tax loss of $138,689 because of those false filings.

DoJ says that Vukich has paid $510,181 to NEA.

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