Publisher and author Jana Koretko has been arrested and charged with “five counts of money laundering, four counts of felony theft, and nine counts of computer crime and three counts of tax evasion”, stemming from altering book sales, and stealing book royalties.
Koretko who is an erotica author, and the owner of JK Publishing, a small publishing house that publishes only erotica and romance, is accused of pocketing over $125,000 of clients money. An investigation by Weld County, Colorado District Attorney’s Office was undertaken back in August of 2015. They found ‘discrepancies in her royalty payments”, and discovered she was “manipulating the monthly and quarterly sales reports from E-book retailers, like Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Noble and Kobo, to indicate lower sales.”
Fifteen authors have been identified as victims, costing those authors over $100,000 in lost royalty payments. The IRS claims she has also not filed any tax returns for two years.
Koretko is scheduled to appear in court on July 7th.
