Widow to seek seat after lawmaker dies
FRANKFORT, Ky. — The wife of a Kentucky lawmaker who killed himself after a sexual assault allegation surfaced this week defended her husband Thursday and said she will run for his seat because “these high-tech lynchings based on lies and halftruths can’t be allowed to win the day.”
In a statement a day after Republican state Rep. Dan Johnson’s suicide, Rebecca Johnson said she has been fighting behind her husband for 30 years and “his fight will go on.”
“Dan is gone but the story of his life is far from over,” she said.
Johnson shot himself Wednesday night near a road in a secluded area. Two days earlier, the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting published a story detailing allegations that he sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl in his basement in 2013. The story prompted state leaders of both major political parties to call for his resignation, and authorities reopened the investigation that had been closed without charges.
Johnson, who pastored a church in Louisville, held a news conference from his pulpit on Tuesday, defiantly denying the allegations. Rebecca Johnson was by her husband’s side during that news conference, which the pastor began by leading friends and family in singing a portion of the Christmas carol “O Come All Ye Faithful.”
The 57-year-old said the allegations against him were “totally false” and part of a nationwide strategy of defeating conservative Republicans. He referenced Republican Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, who faces accusations of sexual misconduct from multiple women.
David Adams, a political operative who worked with Dan Johnson, said Rebecca Johnson was unavailable for a phone interview because she was at a funeral home.
Earlier Thursday, a sheriff said an ominous Facebook post that Dan Johnson made Wednesday night is part of what prompted his family to report him missing.
In the post, he asked for people to take care of his wife and wrote that post-traumatic stress disorder “is a sickness that will take my life, I cannot handle it any longer. It has won this life, BUT HEAVEN IS MY HOME.”