Civil Rights & Constitutional Law
Chandra Law obtains $2,000,750 jury verdict for former police chief LaMont Lockhart against the...
December 15, 2008
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Port Clinton, OH – Today, former Port Clinton Fire Chief Kent Johnson was indicted by an Ottawa County grand jury of his peers on 10 counts, including various sex crimes.
Johnson was charged with the following:
The charges seem to track the factual allegations of Ms. Huskey's federal civil-rights lawsuit.
The news marks the culmination of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s inquiry, which began early in summer 2023, into Rebekah Huskey’s allegations against Johnson of sexual improprieties. The theft-in-office charge suggests that the City of Port Clinton’s outside investigative findings were the basis for that charge.
The indictment was handed down after Special Prosecutor Gwen Howe-Gebers, the Henry County, Ohio prosecuting attorney, convened a grand jury today to hear testimony from former firefighter and EMT Rebekah Huskey and state criminal investigators.
In an unusual move, Johnson himself is believed to have testified, as he was spotted in the courthouse with his lawyer, awaiting his turn.
In her federal civil-rights lawsuit, Ms. Huskey has accused Johnson of repeatedly sexually assaulting and harassing her and seizing her personal phone without her permission to steal her intimate, personal images. That suit details Ms. Huskey’s allegations against Johnson.
Ms. Huskey’s sexual-harassment claims were substantiated by an outside investigation ordered by the city, which also found that Johnson engaged in improper reporting of hours worked by Ms. Huskey. The city ultimately fired Johnson after the outside firm released its findings.
The criminal aspects of the allegations were apparently substantiated by Ohio BCI and the grand jury.
On July 16, 2024 a visiting judge of the Ottawa County Court of Common Pleas permanently dismissed Johnson’s wrongful-termination and other claims against the city and its officials over his firing.
Subodh Chandra, lead counsel for Ms. Huskey, commented, “For Ms. Huskey, this indictment represents an important step in her journey toward justice. She has waited for a long time to see any move toward accountability, and she’s grateful not just to the special prosecutor and the BCI investigators, but to the ordinary citizens who listened to her and charged Johnson with these crimes.”
Chandra added, “As a former federal prosecutor, I can count on one hand the times that the target of a criminal investigation insisted on testifying to a grand jury, much less situations in which the target’s lawyers permitted it. If he testified, Johnson’s ill-advised gambit failed spectacularly, as the grand jury, with these charges, soundly rejected that testimony.”
Johnson’s pitch to city officials when he was placed on administrative leave pending investigation, on June 6, 2023, can be found here:
The criminal case is State of Ohio v. Kent Johnson, Ottawa County Court of Common Pleas Case No. 24CR165. The indictment can be read here.
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