Denial of blackmail, details of sexual affair emerge in JoCo school board member testimony
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Sex, blackmail and local politics: The extortion trial of JoCo school board member Ronald Johnson
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Ronald Johnson Jr. took the witness stand in his own extortion trial Thursday, telling jurors he did not try to blackmail a congressional candidate with an embarrassing recording.
Johnson, the embattled Johnston County school board member, said he wanted to help candidate DeVan Barbour IV in the weeks before the 2022 primary election, and sought to explain the unusual details of their meeting behind a gym in Clayton.
Johnson testified he asked Barbour to meet him behind Clayton Fitness, where he kept an office, because it was a convenient mid-point from Raleigh. Last week, prosecutors asked Barbour if he met many elected officials behind gyms, and he answered, “No.”
The school board member said he got into Barbour’s pickup and handed him an earbud, playing him a recording rather than speaking, because he wanted to make sure no one else heard the dialogue — including Barbour’s wife who was not in the truck with them. The recording included snippets of a recorded conversation Johnson had with his extra-marital lover describing a nude FaceTime call Barbour had made to her.
And counter to testimony from multiple witnesses, Johnson said he did not then demand Barbour get a teacher to sign a statement denying they had an affair in exchange for keeping the recording from going public.
“I told him, ‘Don’t worry about it. I got your back,’” Johnson said in court.
Johnson was a Smithfield police officer at the time the alleged scheme took place. He is on trial for extortion in the case that centers around allegations that he threatened to release a damaging recording of Barbour concerning an “inappropriate conversation” he had with Angela Barbour, Johnson’s extra-marital lover and a Johnston County teacher.
Angela Barbour and DeVan Barbour are not related.
Remaining friendly after alleged blackmail
In testimony Thursday, Johnson said he and DeVan Barbour remain friendly, and that he secretly recorded him at a GOP gathering in 2024.
In his remarks that night, DeVan Barbour followed Johnson’s campaign-related speech by asking the crowd if it believed anything MSNBC said about President Donald Trump or The News & Observer wrote about Republicans, Johnson testified.
He told the crowd “they” would be sorry they messed with Johnston County Republicans, and on the way out, Johnson testified that he offered friendly election words to the congressional candidate.
”We did the handshake, kind of brought it in close, then there was a discussion not to worry about anything,” Johnson testified. “I told him just to go win this MFer.”
An affair with a teacher begins with oral sex during a car ride
A lengthy cross-examination began with details of Johnson’s admitted affair with Angela Barbour, the school teacher and the subject of recordings Johnson played for DeVan Barbour in his truck.
He said on the night their affair began, Angela Barbour performed oral sex on him while he drove her to a trailer “deep in the country” around Meadow where her friends were.
Special Prosecutor Boz Zellinger then asked if they met regularly for sex.
”To have relationships,” Johnson said. “We did have sex, but it was mainly oral sex.”
“You met her in parking lots?” Zellinger asked.
“Not for that,” Johnson testified.
Zellinger then asked if the school board member lied when taking out a restraining order against Angela Barbour without disclosing they had been dating, noting that he called her a “stranger.”
He asked if this was intended to hide their affair.
”I avoided it,” Johnson said.
Zellinger then asked if it would look bad for a school board member to get involved in an extra-marital affair with a teacher.
”In today’s politics,” Johnson said, “I don’t think it would matter.”
Johnson also admitted on Thursday to having three affairs in all with women employed by Johnston County schools.
A visit from an investigator, then a phone call
Through hours of testimony Thursday, Johnson sought to rebut charges beyond extortion, including allegations he removed a box of potential evidence from his office at Clayton Fitness, leading to obstruction of justice.
On Wednesday, investigator Richard Hoffman with the district attorney’s office testified he saw a cellular phone inside the gym office and left to get a search warrant.
While he was gone, the gym manager and a friend of Johnson’s sent a message about the investigator’s visit, and the school board member arrived minutes later.
Footage from the gym showed Johnson leaving the gym carrying a white box, and when Hoffman returned, he could not find the phone.
Johnson said people had been defacing his office door as all the news began to surface, prompting him to think about moving things.
”We’ve got people putting stuff on the door,” he said. “Now you’ve got Inspector Hoffman talking to my friends.”
A nude FaceTime call and a meeting behind a gym
Last week, DeVan Barbour, the congressional candidate, testified Johnson sent a “cryptic” text from an out-of-state phone number weeks before the primary election in 2022, telling him that “make-or-break” information about his campaign was about to go public and instructing him to meet behind the gym in Clayton.
When he arrived at Clayton Fitness, DeVan Barbour testified that Johnson got into the passenger seat of his pickup and gave him an earbud connected to a cellular phone. After DeVan Barbour listened, he said, Johnson told him he wanted Angela Barbour, Johnson’s lover, to write the statement denying their affair, and he later warned the congressional candidate that the message about his “inappropriate” conversation with the teacher was about to come out.
On the stand last week, DeVan Barbour described Johnson as “malicious.” But his lawyers have argued that he sought only to help the fellow Republican, and that when DeVan Barbour said the proposal sounded like blackmail, he backed off and told him to forget it.
Johnson never released the recording.
Angela Barbour testified last week that DeVan Barbour, the congressional candidate, called her via FaceTime and appeared naked in front of a mirror. She also said Johnson asked if she would have sex with DeVan Barbour and record it.
Johnston County school board ‘a little bit toxic’
Both Johnson and fellow school board member Michelle Antoine testified to a contentious environment on the Johnston County school board. Johnson described it as “clique-y” while Antoine called it “not friendly, a little bit toxic.”
Antoine said the two of them are aligned politically, and that the board chair does not allow them on committees.
“She kind of iced us out,” Antoine said of the board chair.
Johnson testified Thursday that he began airing podcasts from his office at Clayton Fitness, and he has criticized the board for what he considered a misallocation of funds.
Johnston also faces two counts of willful failure to discharge duties, one of which stems from his decision to secretly record the board’s “closed” sessions. The board’s ethics policy prohibits this, but Johnson said Thursday his oath of office does not.
Closed sessions are held out of the public view, often for personnel discussions, and Johnson recorded a meeting in which his sixth-grade teacher’s job and salary status were being discussed.
Tracey Peedin Jones taught Johnson as a student and had taken on administrative jobs, including as spokesperson for Johnston County schools. In the meeting he recorded, he testified, a board member was suggesting she should retire though she was on family and medical leave. He then played the recording for Peedin Jones.
“I admit to acting to prevent a violation of FMLA law,” he said.
Closing arguments are expected Friday, and the jury should get the case soon after.
This story was originally published January 16, 2025 at 11:42 AM with the headline "Denial of blackmail, details of sexual affair emerge in JoCo school board member testimony."
