Jurors deliver verdict in JoCo extortion case involving secret recordings and affairs
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Sex, blackmail and local politics: The extortion trial of JoCo school board member Ronald Johnson
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After three hours of deliberation on Friday, a jury found an embattled Johnston County school board member guilty of extortion and other crimes.
Ronald Johnson Jr., 41, a former Smithfield police officer and a school board member, had been accused of trying to blackmail a congressional candidate. The former rising star in the Republican Party had been charged with extortion, obstruction of justice and willfully failing to discharge his duties.
On Friday, Superior Court Judge Joseph Crosswhite sentenced Johnson to 6 to 17 months in prison on the felony extortion charge. He received a suspended sentence of 16 to 29 months and 30 months of probation for the charges of obstruction of justice and failure to discharge his duties.
Crosswhite also ordered that Johnson be removed from the school board and ordered him to surrender his law enforcement license.
The sentencing came after Special Prosecutor Boz Zellinger said Johnson had destroyed too many lives in the community. The state had taken over the case at the request of Johnston County District Attorney Susan Doyle.
“He has left a wake of destruction behind him,” Zellinger told the judge. “The only way to stop him is to sentence him to active time.”
Amos Tyndall, Johnson’s attorney, unsuccessfully argued that he should only get probation. Tyndall cited that Johnson had been a police officer for 17 years and had been re-elected by voters in November.
On Saturday morning, Johnston County school board chair Lyn Andrews issued a statement saying the board appreciated those who worked to bring “closure” for residents, the county’s students and staff and residents.
“This ordeal has taken a tremendous amount of resources over the past three years and our thoughts are with the many victims impacted by his actions,” the statement said.
The board will now work to fill Johnson’s vacancy on the board and will hold a special meeting Tuesday, Jan. 21, at 8 a.m.
Second JoCo official convicted in recent months
Johnson is the second Johnston County elected official convicted in recent months. In October. Johnston County Commissioner Richard Braswell was forced to resign after being convicted of taking indecent liberties with a child.
“Justice was served,” school board chair Lyn Andrews said after Johnson’s verdict. She was among several school board members who were present in the courthouse for Friday’s proceedings. The school board will fill Johnson’s vacancy.
Johnson was accused of threatening to release compromising audio involving congressional candidate DeVan Barbour unless Barbour got a teacher they both knew to falsely deny that she was having an extramarital affair with Johnson.
The two-week trial revealed information about secret recordings and lascivious details about Johnson having multiple affairs with school employees, including having oral sex in cars.
“The state is not asking you to convict the defendant for having affairs,” Zellinger told the jury. “But these affairs corroborate how the defendant uses people.”
Sex and affairs with multiple JoCo school employees
Johnson had been on the school board since 2016 and was re-elected in November despite being under criminal indictment. He was fired by the Smithfield Police Department in 2022 on charges of “detrimental personal conduct.”
During testimony on Thursday, Johnson admitted he’s had extramarital affairs with three female school employees. One of those women is Angela Barbour, a Johnston County teacher who he had an affair with from November 2020 to February 2022.
Tyndall, Johnson’s attorney, asked the jury not to hold the affairs against his client.
“These poor decisions and indiscretions are not the ultimate issue in the case,” Tyndall said.
Angela Barbour testified that Johnson asked her to make secret recordings for him, including of DeVan Barbour, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2022 and 2024. This came after Angela Barbour testified that she told Johnson that DeVan Barbour had made a nude FaceTime call to her.
Angela Barbour and DeVan Barbour are not related.
Allegations of extorting a political candidate
Angela Barbour testified that the relationship ended after she discovered Johnson was also having an affair with her best friend, who is also a district teacher. Angela Barbour began telling people about her affair with Johnson.
Zellinger told the jury that Johnson was desperate to silence Angela Barbour to protect his political career. Zellinger said Johnson decided to use what the board member called in a text message “the DeVan bomb.”.
DeVan Barbour has testified that shortly before the 2022 Republican primary, he met Johnson in a pickup truck behind a Clayton gym where the board member kept an office. DeVan Barbour testified that Johnson got into his pickup and gave him an earbud attached to a cell phone, which played part of a recording from Angela Barbour talking about the nude FaceTime call.
DeVan Barbour testified Johnson wanted something in exchange for making the recording go away: Get Angela Barbour to write a letter denying that she ever had an affair with Johnson.
After the meeting, DeVan Barbour testified that worries about the recording’s release haunted every moment of his life leading up to the primary. He repeatedly contacted Angela Barbour asking her to deny the affair with Johnson.
“This case is about extortion, blackmail and obstruction of justice,” Zellinger said. “No one, not even an elected official, is above the law.”
Johnston County school board member and a recording
Johnson denied Thursday on the stand that he had asked DeVan Barbour to get a statement from the teacher recanting their relationship. He instead testified he let DeVan Barbour know about the recording to help him out.
There was no good way for Johnson to share the information with DeVan Barbour, Tyndall said. The attorney said the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the candidate may have misinterpreted what Johnson told him during the meeting.
“He didn’t release any recording or make any public statements about Mr. Barbour,” Tyndall said.
Tyndall also pointed to a friendly interaction between DeVan Barbour and Johnson at a 2024 GOP event before the primary. A secret recording of that meeting made by Johnson was played for the jury.
“If you can’t rely on Mr. Barbour, then the state hasn’t proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Tyndall said.
But Zellinger said it wouldn’t have made sense for DeVan Barbour to make it an issue at a public event where he was trying to get support for his campaign.
Zellinger also said that Johnson had lost all benefit from releasing the recording after the 2022 primary.
During the sentencing Friday, Zellnger cited how Johnson was still continuing to secretly record people. Zellinger relayed to the judge that Barbour told him the controversy “absolutely destroyed my life.”
Why did Johnson remove items from his office?
The obstruction of justice charge stems from allegations Johnson removed a box of potential evidence from his office at Clayton Fitness after the investigation had begun.
Johnson removed items, including a phone, after hearing from a friend that Richard Hoffman, an investigator for the Johnston County District’s Attorney’s Office, had visited the gym.
“He had every right to remove his personal property,” Tyndall said.
Tyndall said that Hoffman could have asked Clayton Police to watch the office if he was worried about evidence being removed.
But Zellinger told the jury it’s no coincidence that Johnson came to the office before a search warrant could be executed.
Trying to reassign students, having lover followed
The failure to discharge duties charges stem from secret recordings of school board closed sessions and allegations Johnson retaliated against former friend Owen Phillips by trying to get his kids transferred to a different school.
Phillips testified that Johnson asked him to conduct surveillance of Angela Barbour. Text messages presented during the trial show Johnson accused Phillips of turning on him when he met with Angela Barbour.
Bennett Jones, the former principal of Clayton High, testified that Johnson asked him to reassign Phillips’ two special-needs students out of the school. Jones didn’t move them.
Zellinger called the efforts to transfer the two children with autism “vile” and an abuse of Johnson’s power.
“That’s the definition of corruption, using his political office for personal gain,” Zellinger said.
As part of Johnson’s sentence, a permanent no-contact order was issued between him and DeVan Barbour and him and Owen Phillips and his children.
The school board censured Johnson in 2022 over the recording of closed-session meetings and the attempted transfer of the students. Johnson had called the censure and request he resign from the school board a “witch hunt.”
“This defendant wreaked havoc on his community while he was a public official,” State Attorney General Jeff Jackson said in a statement. “Again and again, he used his office for his own gain — that’s corruption, and it’s a crime. I’m grateful to the judge and the jury for making sure this man can’t keep breaking the law and hurting people.”
This story was originally published January 17, 2025 at 2:27 PM with the headline "Jurors deliver verdict in JoCo extortion case involving secret recordings and affairs."
