Johnson has pleaded guilty to 15 charges, including bigamy, adultery and fraud, but pleaded not guilty to the two counts. The two counts concern a government-funded cell phone he gave the family of his alleged mistress and a contract he allegedly steered to the benefit of her father.
Johnson, 48, took command of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in 2008, but was fired in March 2011 after an Army investigation found he had misused government resources in a variety of ways to further his relationship with the alleged mistress, an Iraqi woman named Haveen Al Atar.
Earlier in the week, Johnson pleaded guilty to charges that he hired his mistress’ father as a cultural adviser and he had the Army pay about $74,600 for contracts that he knew were false and fraudulent, The Associated Press reported.
Lt. Col. William Helixon, the prosecutor, opened with a brief overview of Johnson’s “stellar, star-dusted career,” according to the newspaper Stars and Stripes. The son of a three star general, Johnson is a 1986 West Point graduate. But Helixon said the evidence will show another side to the colonel: “Manipulation, self-dealing, entitlement.”
Helixon reportedly said the evidence would show that Johnson gave a cell phone to Alladin Al Atar, the father of the woman, even though Al Atar had no connection to the brigade.
“The only connection — he was the father of Col. Johnson’s mistress,” Helixon said, adding that the government paid more than $80,000 for that cell phone.
Johnson attempted to push through contracts with a Dutch company to provide the U.S. government with windmills that extract humidity from the air and turn it into water, which can then be bottled for drinking, Helixon said, according to reports.
According to the published report, Lt. Col. Charles Kuhfahl, Johnson’s defense lawyer, said the evidence would not show that the colonel knew that Al Atar would benefit from the contracts, even though Al Atar introduced the owner of the company to Johnson.
Kuhfahl reportedly said Johnson was interested in the project because it would “save American lives.” He did not elaborate.
He said the cell phone was used for Johnson and Al Atar to discuss counterinsurgency matters, according to the newspaper. Johnson did use the phone improperly, Kuhfahl conceded, to talk to Haveen Al Atar.
In the final analysis, Kuhfahl reportedly said, the government would fail to prove at least one of the elements of the charges, and he told the five member military jury, “you will return a verdict of not guilty on the two specifications.”
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