Dan Johnson, a Republican state lawmaker in Kentucky who was accused of molesting a teenage girl, committed suicide, the country coroner said. Johnson had previously denied the allegations that he assaulted the girl in the basement of his home when she was only 17.
According to Bullitt County Coroner Dave Billings, Johnson died of one gunshot wound on Greenwell Ford Road in Mount Washington, Kentucky. He explained that the lawmaker stopped his car at the end of a bridge, got out and walked to the front of the car, Associated Press reported.
“I would say it is probably suicide,” he said.
As the pastor of Heart of Fire church in Louisville, Johnson sponsored a number of bills relating to religious liberty and teaching the Bible in public schools. But he was mostly out of the spotlight until Monday, when an account from a woman saying Johnson sexually assaulted her in the basement of his home, was published.
After the accusations surfaced, Johnson said that they were unfounded. The Republican Party of Kentucky and House Republican Caucus leaders urged him to resign, but Johnson did not want to do so. On Wednesday, the lawmaker once again denied the accusations.
“The accusations from NPR are false GOD and only GOD knows the truth, nothing is the way they make it out to be. AMERICA will not survive this type of judge and jury fake news. Conservatives take a stand. I LOVE GOD and I LOVE MY WIFE, who is the best WIFE in the world,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
Johnson was elected to the state legislature in 2016. His victory was part of a wave of Republican victories that helped the Republican party to take control of the Kentucky House of Representatives for the first time in nearly a century. Republican leaders were urging him to drop out of the race after reports that he was comparing Barack and Michelle Obama to monkeys in his posts on Facebook. Despite everything, Johnson won the election.
Be the first to comment