A longtime assistant to Alabama state Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, will be sentenced later this year after pleading guilty to taking nearly $88,000 worth of her dead parents’ federal retirement payments.

U.S. District Court Judge L. Scott Coogler on Thursday accepted Varrie Johnson’s guilty plea and set a sentencing date for Dec. 19 at the Hugo L. Black U.S. Courthouse in Birmingham.

According to court documents released this week, Johnson, a Chelsea resident also known as Varrie Kindall, signed a plea agreement on Aug. 14, pleading guilty to one count of theft of government property and one count of aggravated identity theft. She’s also agreed to pay back the benefits she took for herself to the federal agencies and waived her right to appeal.

The plea agreement appeared in the court docket on Thursday. In exchange for her plea agreement, the U.S. attorney agreed to dismiss three other counts from her May indictment.

This is separate from her indictment related to a federal kickback scheme that took down state Rep. Fred Plump.

Her recommended sentence is for a two-year term of imprisonment at a federal facility for the aggravated identity theft charge as well a court-determined term for the theft of government property charge before supervised release, per the plea agreement.

Johnson’s attorney, Jim Parkman of Birmingham, declined to comment.

Johnson’s father, identified in the indictment as “M.J.,” was a coal miner who died in 1980. After retiring, he received a pension, social security benefits and compensation from the Labor Department to help workers disabled by black lung disease, per the indictment. Johnson’s mother, “A.J.,” received those benefit payments after her husband’s death.

After her mother died in 2017, Johnson began collecting the payments for her personal use, through April 2022, per the plea agreement.

“Defendant Johnson further admitted that funds were withdrawn from the account and converted to her own personal use,” the plea agreement reads, adding that in interviews with federal agents she had also “accepted responsibility for receiving the Black Lung Benefits and UMWA Pension Funds as well as the erroneous SSA payments.”

Johnson agreed to pay $42,210 to the Social Security Administration, $37,247.10 to the U.S. Department of Labor Black Lung Benefit Program, and $8,400 to the United Mine Workers of America 1974 Pension Plan, in addition to a fine and a $200 fee, per the agreement.

She previously pleaded not guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge John H. England III at her arraignment on July 13, and was released on a bond of $5,000, per court records. In early August, she asked the court for permission to travel to New Orleans for three days to take her granddaughter to college, which the court granted.

In the meantime, Johnson will be arraigned on Sept. 14 in a separate case, as federal prosecutors allege she conspired to skim nearly $200,000 in public money in a scheme that involved Plump’s nonprofit receiving public money from a Jefferson County community service fund and funneling it to Johnson and Rogers.

She was recently indicted on 21 federal charges, which was unsealed Thursday in federal court in Birmingham.

Rogers has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in interviews with AL.com, and has not been criminally charged. Rogers has previously said that he employs Johnson privately to handle both personal and public business, as well as caretaking and driving.

Joseph D. Bryant contributed to this story.