Former Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson faces up to 14 years in prison for what federal prosecutors call “one of the most egregious and notorious” pay-to-play schemes in Maryland history. His wife, Leslie, faces up to 18 months for stuffing $79,600 of the bribe money in her bra when FBI agents showed up at the couple’s Mitchellville home. Attorneys for the former power couple will likely cite their years of public service to argue for more lenient sentences when the Johnsons are sentenced next week. But that background is precisely why both husband and wife should spend as much time in jail as the law allows. Prior to being elected county executive, Jack Johnson was Prince George’s states attorney. As the county’s top prosecutor who sent people to jail himself, he was under no illusions that extortion and evidence tampering – the two charges to which he pleaded guilty in May – were serious crimes. But according to federal prosecutors, Johnson began shaking down developers and accepting bribes in 2003 – right after he was elected as county executive. The corruption continued for eight long years until Johnson was finally caught on a wiretap directing his wife to destroy evidence.
As a lawyer and an administrative law judge in D.C. before being elected to the Prince George’s County Council, Leslie Johnson also has no excuses. U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who prosecuted the couple after a six-year federal investigation, called their behavior “a disgraceful abuse of the trust placed in them by the citizens of Prince George’s County.” Using their positions to undermine the very governmental system that citizens depend upon for protection, subverting those public offices for illegal private gain, and embroiling the county’s former housing director and two police officers in their venal corruption, is simply unforgivable.
After committing crimes so corrosive to the community they served, the privileged couple once featured on the cover of the New York Times magazine didn’t express sufficient remorse. Even their post-conviction behavior was all about them. Due to a loophole in state law, Jack Johnson continues to collect his $49,552.32 state pension because he was not technically convicted in office. And Leslie Johnson initially refused to resign her council seat despite pleas from fellow members. As clemency for these two self-indulgent felons is neither earned nor warranted. None should be granted.
