Johnston County voters have reelected a school board member who is under indictment for criminal charges.
Ronald Johnson received 50.5% of the vote to defeat Jeff Sullivan in the District 7 school board race, according to unofficial election results. Johnson is scheduled to stand trial in December on charges of extortion and felony obstruction of justice.
Although Johnson won, efforts to switch the school board in a more conservative direction failed on Tuesday.
Incumbent board members Lyn Andrews and Kay Carroll were reelected. April Lee, the former president of the Johnston County chapter of the N.C. Association of Educators, also won her race.
Conservative groups such as Johnston County Republican Men, Citizens Advocates for Accountable Government (CAAG) and the Carolina Teachers Alliance had backed Johnson as well as Jason Shuler, David Spain and Rick Walker. Even though Andrews is a Republican, those groups felt she wasn’t conservative enough.
State lawmakers switched the school board from at-large to residency-based districts. Candidates still had to run countywide but must live in one of the districts on the ballot.
A censured and indicted leader
Johnson was first elected to the school board in 2016 and was reelected in 2020.
Johnson was censured by the school board twice in 2022, drawing ire for secretly recording conversations during closed-session meetings and also for sending texts during board meetings commenting on the appearance of female school employees.
He also was accused of trying to have two special-education students removed from a school because of his personal issues with a parent.
Soon after the second censure vote in October 2022, Johnson was fired from his job as a detective in the Smithfield Police Department due to what town officials called his “detrimental personal conduct.” He had been an officer for 17 years.
In April 2023, Johnson was indicted on charges of extortion, felony obstruction of justice and three counts of willfully failing to discharge his duties. The allegations included that he threatened to reveal a defamatory recording of a congressional candidate unless the candidate pressured a woman to recant statements that she had an affair with Johnson.
In June 2023, Johnson filed a federal lawsuit charging that there’s been “irreparable harm to his reputation and livelihood.” Most of the defendants, including the school board, were dropped from the case by a judge. But the judge allowed Johnson to continue his suit against the Town of Smithfield.
History of electing people facing charges in Johnston County
Johnson isn’t the first Johnston County elected official to be elected while facing criminal charges.
In 2022, County Commissioner Richard “Dickie” Braswell was arrested and charged with incident liberties with a 13-year-old child. Braswell ran unopposed that year and was reelected.
Braswell resigned in October after being convicted of the sex crimes charge.
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