JoCo teacher says she was asked to record sex, wear a wire as extortion trial continues
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Sex, blackmail and local politics: The extortion trial of JoCo school board member Ronald Johnson
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A Johnston County teacher testified Friday she had a lengthy extramarital affair with a school board member and that he asked her to secretly record other Republican politicians, including a congressional candidate he wanted her to snare in a sex video.
Angela Barbour took the stand on the second day of Ronald Johnson Jr.’s extortion trial, telling jurors she fell into a relationship with the former Smithfield police officer in 2020 during a “horrible” stage of her marriage but eventually became “scared” of his tactics.
They spoke only on Snapchat so their messages would not be saved, she said, and he texted her using the phone pseudonym “Heather Jones” to avoid suspicion. During a trip to Virginia Beach, she testified, Johnson printed a fake binder for Barbour to make it look like she was attending a convention on teaching comic superheroes in the classroom.
At one point, she said, Johnson asked her to attend a GOP convention he couldn’t make, and to wear a wire to record conversations with other politicians there.
“I agreed,” she said, sighing heavily, “because I loved him.”
She met Johnson at the Smithfield Police Department and he equipped her with a recording device consisting of a key fob and phone. She wasn’t able to make it work, she said, but she tried.
A few months later, she said, Johnson asked her if she could supply information on DeVan Barbour IV, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022 and 2024.
“Do you think you can catch him doing anything wrong?” she recalled him asking. “Do you think you could have sex with him and get it on video.”
Angela Barbour testified on Friday, “I’m not that kind of person. I guess he thinks I’m that kind of person because I had an affair.” Still, she said, Johnson gave her a phone for recording Devan Barbour’s messages.
The Barbours are not related.
Re-elected to JoCo school board, censured by colleagues
Re-elected to the school board in November, Johnson has been censured by his colleagues for making secret recordings in closed session and also fired from his job as a police detective.
His extortion charge stems from accusations he met Devan Barbour in his pickup truck behind the Clayton gym where he kept an office. Devan Barbour testified Thursday that Johnson got into his pickup and gave him an earbud attached to a cell phone, which played part of a recording from Barbour the teacher.
Devan Barbour, the candidate, said he knew rumors were circulating that he had an “inappropriate conversation” with Angela Barbour, the teacher, and that Johnson said he could make the recording disappear if Devan Barbour would get the teacher to sign a letter stating she and Johnson did not have an affair.
When Devan Barbour later told Johnson that the arrangement “sounded like blackmail,” Johnson backed off and said to forget it.
A ‘fully nude’ FaceTime call from a congressional candidate
But on Friday, jurors heard more about the inappropriate conversation.
In late 2021, Angela Barbour said Devan Barbour called her after midnight.
“D had too much to drink,” she testified, using Devan Barbour’s nickname. “He tried to get me to go to his house. I would not. He kept calling. He kept calling.”
Shortly after, another call came with Devan Barbour’s wife’s name showing as the caller. She picked it up, she said, thinking, ‘Oh my God, she knows he’s been talking smack.”
It was Devan Barbour, however, calling via FaceTime.
“He was standing there fully nude in his bathroom,” Angela Barbour testified. “I covered my eyes and put the phone down. ‘Go to bed.’ “
She later told Johnson, she testified, who laughed off the incident at first but soon wanted to know more.
An affair with the JoCo school board member
Angela Barbour told jurors she moved into an apartment of her own during her affair with Johnson but has since reunited with her husband.
Describing the affair, Angela Barbour repeatedly painted a picture of Johnson acting out of caution and suspicion. They had multiple rendezvous in hotels, but he would always enter the room separately and first. They took trips to Charlotte and Virginia, but they took two cars in case they had an accident and had to explain why they were together. They had sex in her car, but not Johnson’s unmarked patrol car, parked sometimes at Mayflower Seafood.
The first time they connected romantically, she testified, she had too much to drink, kissed him and later called him for a ride home after she twisted her ankle and feared her husband would be angry. She woke thinking they had sex in her friend’s house, she said, but Johnson assured her they had not.
Later in their relationship, she said, he confirmed that they had.
“He said he was scared I would accuse him of rape,” she said.
Barbour testified she sometimes felt as though Johnson was having her followed, enough that she had a former SBI agent sweep her apartment for bugs.
In 2022, she said, she took a girls’ trip to Charlotte and met Johnson at a Bojangles when she returned. He wanted to know if she had met anybody, and Barbour told him she hadn’t.
Johnson persisted, asking Barbour if she was sure. As he quizzed her about Charlotte, he played her the country song, “God Bless Texas.”
“I love this song, don’t you?” Barbour recalled Johnson asking.
At that point, she remembered she had briefly met a man in Charlotte who introduced himself as a Texas native.
“I was scared at that point,” she said.
Testimony continues on Monday.
This story was originally published January 10, 2025 at 1:58 PM with the headline "JoCo teacher says she was asked to record sex, wear a wire as extortion trial continues."
