A D.C. police officer was found guilty Tuesday of sexually abusing the daughter of his former girlfriend, after an emotional three-day trial in Superior Court.
Johnson, who joined the force in 2018, is suspended without pay and his termination is “pending,” police spokesman Paris Lewbel said. Johnson’s father and brother are also D.C. police officers.
Johnson’s attorneys had argued that their client never sexually assaulted the girl and that the ex-girlfriend persuaded her daughter to make up the allegations after he abruptly broke up with her, moved out of her apartment and began dating another woman.
“Mr. Johnson is innocent. He never abused anyone. He brought caring, love and support and, most importantly, protection into that home for that little child,” Johnson’s attorney Steven Kiersh said during closing arguments last week.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marco Crocetti accused the defense team of “victim blaming.”
“The magnitude of torture that a mother would willingly subject her daughter to — no mother would intentionally put their child through something like this,” Crocetti said. “Both of them would have to be Oscar-worthy actresses to pull this off.”
The most emotional part of the trial came when the girl, now 12, wearing shoulder-length braids and wiping away tears, took the witness stand and described the abuse she said she suffered at the hands of the man she called “dad” and “C.J.” Johnson, she said, often took her shopping and cooked with her in the kitchen.
“He told me to trust him and stuff. And I trusted him,” she said, describing one assault. “But then he pulled my shirt up and I was telling him to stop. He forced me to kiss him. I felt uncomfortable and harassed.”
Johnson sat next to his attorneys, writing in a notebook and occasionally glancing up at the girl as she spoke. He did not testify during the trial. The girl’s testimony was critical, because by the time the allegations were reported to law enforcement, she had no physical injuries or indicators of a sex assault.
The girl’s mother testified that she learned of the assaults months after moving out of the apartment, when she walked in on her daughter appearing to try to take her own life.
“That was the worst day of my life,” the woman told the jury. “My baby didn’t want to live anymore.”
The woman said that when her daughter began telling her about the abuse, she took out her smartphone and began video-recording her comments. That video was played for the jury.
“I recorded her because I wanted everyone to hear from her, the truth,” the woman testified. “C.J. won’t be able to touch anybody ever again. This much I know.”
The woman disputed that she had forced her daughter to concoct the allegations to get back at Johnson.
“I would have never had done that. I would have never told my daughter to make such graphic allegations. She chose to do this on her own so no one else has to go through the pain again,” the woman testified.
On Tuesday, as the jury rendered its verdicts after nearly two days of deliberations, the woman and her daughter sat quietly in the back of the courtroom, both wiping away tears.
Judge Michael O’Keefe ordered Johnson remanded to D.C. jail until his sentencing on Oct. 6.