In Leslie E. Johnson’s Prince George’s County Council district, which she has represented since December, Wednesday was to have been a day of reckoning.
Nearly six months after her arrest in a corruption investigation that also ensnared her husband, then-County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D), Leslie Johnson was to enter a plea in the case that day. But two days before she was due in federal court, prosecutors announced that the hearing had been canceled.
The news plunged Johnson’s 110,000 constituents, from struggling inner Capital Beltway communities to gated luxury developments, deeper into political limbo.
Johnson (D-Mitchellville), who federal officials said was arrested with $79,600 stuffed in her bra, has seen her council responsibilities curtailed. Many people following the case had predicted that any plea would include an agreement with her to resign from her council seat.
But with her court date on indefinite hold, there is no sense of what is next, no idea of how long Johnson, 59, will remain in office and no clue as to when the long-running drama might end.
The explosive and embarrassing case continues to stir strong feelings and reopen old wounds in Prince George’s, which has struggled to shake its reputation as a place where payoffs are part of the cost of doing business.
Unlike her husband, who is out office and able to maintain a lower profile, Leslie Johnson has stayed in the spotlight because of her presence on the council. For the same reason, so has the case. Jack Johnson has made clear that he plans to fight the charges and go to trial, but Leslie Johnson has not talked publicly about her legal strategy. She declined a request for an interview.
But her constituents, many of whom have been reluctant to discuss the case, expressed worry, frustration, empathy and most of all uncertainty last week as they discussed her troubles and the consequences for her district.
“I think everyone is waiting to see what the outcome will be,” said Darryl Barnes, who owns a technology firm and heads Men Aiming Higher, a nonprofit group in Mitchellville that recently received a proclamation from Leslie Johnson for its community service.
As he sipped iced tea in one of the district’s busy gathering spots — a Ruby Tuesday near the Beltway — Barnes mulled the meaning of her case.
“It is a very tough conversation to have for me,” said Barnes, who served in the Army and Navy. “She is a person who just got into a bad situation.” He said the council’s decision in December to bar her from serving on council committees hurts her and her constituents.
“If her hands weren’t tied, she would have been able to be more effective,” Barnes said.
In court papers, federal officials have charged Jack Johnson, 62, with accepting more than $200,000 in bribes and playing a central role in a broad corruption conspiracy that involved other county officials, candidates for public office, and at least three developers or business leaders.
Leslie Johnson has been charged with witness tampering and destruction of evidence for her alleged role on Nov. 12, the day federal officials say they overheard the couple on a wiretap conspiring to destroy a $100,000 check from a developer and hide money in Leslie Johnson’s undergarments.
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