Man found guilty in attempted kidnapping,
Justin Johnson, 26, faces up to 20 years on each count.
A Travis County jury on Thursday found a man guilty of two counts of attempted aggravated kidnapping after he tried to nab two girls on their way to a Pflugerville elementary school in February 2013.
Jurors deliberated a little more than an hour before handing their verdict against Justin Michael Johnson, 26, who faces two sentences of between two and 20 years in prison but also is eligible for probation. Judge Cliff Brown, who presided over the case, will weigh Johnson’s punishment and is expected to sentence him Oct. 23.
In court this week, witnesses said the man followed the two sisters, ages 8 and 10, about 7:15 a.m. on Feb. 13, 2013, as they walked on the hike-and-bike trail on Quiet Water Pass near Murchison Elementary School, just east of Texas 130.
One of the jurors sobbed loudly as the older girl testified, saying she had been terrified when the man cupped his hand over her mouth and caused her to urinate in her pants.
The girl said he had first put his hands on her shoulders and asked them to do him a favor. When they told him they had to go to school, he grabbed for her. The children screamed, and the man pushed the older girl to the ground. She was able to break free, and both children ran to the school, where they alerted staff members.
Johnson, who ran away, later confessed to the crime, telling police he had been having “sexual fantasies.”
In closing arguments Thursday, defense lawyer Mindy Montford contended the state was attempting to prosecute Johnson not for the incident, but for the thoughts he confessed to having. She asked jurors to consider the lesser charges of unlawful restraint and assault by contact, arguing those crimes fit his actions.
Montford said her client had no master plan that day: He parked his car two football fields away and had not been carrying anything to restrain the girls.
“You have to prosecute and convict for what the conduct is, not how creepy it is,” she said.
But Travis County prosecutors Jeremy Sylestine and Victoria Winkeler asked jurors to focus on the statements Johnson made to police, saying his intent to abduct and harm the girls had been “crystal clear.”
“He might be the worst attempted aggravated kidnapper there is, but all we have to show you is that he did do it,” Sylestine said.
In testimony during the punishment phase Thursday, witnesses said Johnson admitted to least one other separate attempted kidnapping of a girl in the greenbelt area on Dec. 18, 2012. An officer with the state attorney general’s office said Johnson had images of child pornography and bestiality on his computer.
Shedding tears on the witness stand, the girls’ mother said the incident had changed her daughters’ world-view and had caused her to second guess all of her decisions as a parent. Her oldest daughter, once fearless and outgoing, was afraid to go anywhere alone and until only recently had been unable to go to sleep with the lights off. “She had never been someone who was afraid of the dark,” the mother said.