Katja Spitz, formerly head of the Pacific County Tourism Bureau, has been charged with an alleged felony.

SEAVIEW — One count of first-degree theft was filed against Katja M. Spitz in Pacific County Superior Court on Dec. 3. Judge Donald J. Richter issued a $75,000 warrant for her arrest. The arrest warrant states the county will extradite her within the “normal cooperative transport area.”

The felony charge comes after coworkers raised concerns and a subsequent extensive investigation discovered more than $73,000 allegedly misappropriated while Spitz was leading the Pacific County Tourism Bureau (PCTB).

Workers first noticed inaccurate accounting around Aug. 6, with at least $10,000 — and up to $100,000 — unaccounted for. The discovery was disclosed while Spitz, 46, was on vacation.

Upon her return on Aug. 7, she was placed on administrative leave and then fired on Aug. 13 after investigators made additional discoveries. Records indicated missing funds between December 2023 and July 2024.

The bureau hired Spitz in November 2022.

According to court records, PCTB Treasurer David Glasson, who is also the city administrator for Long Beach, informed the Pacific County Sheriff’s Office on Aug. 21 that $42,526.96 was missing, which was later increased to $73,204.81.

A formal investigation by the sheriff’s office was launched on Sept. 25 once a detective became available to take on the case. Seaview, where the tourism bureau office is located, is part of the sheriff’s office’s jurisdiction.

Discovery

PCTB Financial Coordinator Casi Gerig and Madelyn Skilling discovered discrepancies in records while Spitz was taking time off. The duo said they first brought the issue to Pacific County Commissioner Lisa Olsen, who then called Glasson, who launched an inquiry.

Banking records and card statements allegedly show “a lot of purchases are from Amazon” and “found there was a lot of purchases made on Amazon and Home Depot.” Spitz would reportedly turn in purchase receipts to Gerig and state they were legitimate business expenses.

Pull Quote

‘The $73,204.81 was found to be spent for personal gain and unrelated to anything in regards to the [tourism bureau]. Katja was the only individual that had a copy of the credit card as well as access.’

Kevin Acdal, sheriff’s office detective

If she was challenged about their authenticity as business expenses, she would allegedly “bully” Gerig and put workers’ jobs on the line.

PCSO Detective Kevin Acdal questioned Glasson about the fact that the bureau board did not track financial outlays more closely.

“It appears there was a lack of oversight on Katja by the President and Executive Board,” Acdal states in court records. “When I asked Glasson about it, he explained when it came to the employees that worked with Katja, ‘she more or less bullied and intimidated them to think their job was always on the line.’”

‘Red flags’ a year before

Gerig reportedly began noticing issues with banking and card records in December 2023, when she had a goal of linking the two with QuickBooks. By doing so, records would be more easily captured in real time; Spitz told Gerig to find another goal.

“Katja wanted Gerig’s goals to be that Gerig would continue to manually enter the information for the first quarter to ‘ensure transparency and accuracy,’” Acdal states in court records. “And for the second quarter, for Gerig to research the pros and cons of having the bank account linked to QuickBooks. Gerig stated at this point, she started to get suspicious of Katja due to there being a lot of ‘red flags.’”

Gerig had wanted to go to the board about her concerns for at least a year. Spitz reportedly “alienated” workers from the board and directly told Gerig, “You need to watch what you say and think, ‘Is Kat going to talk to me about this later, and if so, don’t say it.’”

“Gerig stated at some point there were too many ‘red flags,’ so she started hiding the credit card statements and waited for Katja to be out of the office before opening them up,” Acdal states.

“When she started to review the statements, she noticed unrelated work purchases such as Factor, Peloton, and Match.com. After reviewing the statements, Gerig would make a copy and put the original file in Katja’s office,” he added.

To cover her tracks, Spitz reportedly created false spreadsheets for credit card purchases using Excel and didn’t allow bureau employees to check the actual statements. The record was then handed over to Gerig for formal input and would “never balance.”

Commissioner intervenes

According to court records, Gerig and two others were uncomfortable going directly to the board, so they contacted Olsen, a friend of one of theirs, on Aug. 2. She reportedly told them it was “serious” and “that they needed to handle it.”

“According to Gerig, after speaking with Commissioner Olsen, she went to the Board and told them to reach out to Skillings and Ashley,” Acdal states. “The theft wasn’t reported to law enforcement until 13 days after the disclosure to Commissioner Olsen.”

“It wasn’t until Glasson made a report to 911 on [Aug. 15] that law enforcement was made aware. Although County Commissioner Lisa Olsen had personal knowledge of county funds being misappropriated, she has kept herself out of the investigation and left the disclosure up to Glasson,” he added, saying follow up with Olsen would also be required.

Under Washington state law, there is no duty to report suspected criminal activity. Olsen is also not an acting member of the bureau’s board.

Matson: Deputy slow

The arrest probable cause affidavit filed against Spitz points at the bureau’s administrative board for the incident and ensuing delayed investigation.

However, Acdal notes in the court filing that, “due to conflicting schedules as well as unrelated cases, I wasn’t able to meet with Glasson right away. Glasson reached out on [Sept. 7] and requested to set up an interview. I attempted to set up a time on [Sept. 16], but due to unrelated issues we were unable to meet.”

The bureau’s administrative president, Madeline Matson, states they initially delayed reaching out to law enforcement to gather facts.

“The reason we took a week to contact the sheriff’s department was because we were ensuring we knew that funds had been stolen and were starting the insurance claim process,” Matson said. “We were told we may need to file a criminal claim as part of that and it just took a few days before we knew exactly how we needed to proceed.”

“It should also be noted that after the deputy’s initial interview with David, which took over a month to coordinate, we received no contact from the sheriff’s department for over two months even though we reached out repeatedly for updates,” Matson added.

According to Matson, the arrest probable cause affidavit is full of “personal opinion that isn’t based on fact.”

“It also completely fails to mention how long the sheriff’s department sat on the criminal claim before acting on it,” Matson said, “and then how long it took them to follow up after the initial interview. It took multiple calls to the sheriff himself for Deputy [Acdal] to finally get back to us.

“Katja continued to live here months after the incident occurred and they would have had the opportunity to arrest her locally had they acted more quickly. So trying to say we moved slowly is false to begin with and also laughable considering the amount of time they took to pursue it,” Matson added.

Confronted

The bureau’s board confronted Spitz during a meeting on Aug. 13, when she was fired. She admitted to “indiscretions” and initially offered to pay back $5,287. She eventually paid back $8,236.12, leaving $64,968.29 still outstanding.

“The $73,204.81 was found to be spent for personal gain and unrelated to anything in regards to the PCTB,” Acdal states. “Katja was the only individual that had a copy of the credit card as well as access.”

“Although not the full amount, Katja also admits to using the company credit card for approximately $5,000 worth of personal purchases and apologized for her ‘transgressions’ at the time of her termination. Sometime later, Katja paid back the PCTB $8,236.12 in what appears to be an attempt to make things right,” he added.

In the months since her termination, Spitz put her home up for sale and is believed to have potentially moved to Minnesota or left the country to Vancouver, British Columbia, or even Sweden since she is a dual citizen.