Dan Johnson (Kentucky politician)
Danny Ray Johnson was an American religious leader and politician who died by suicide two days after the release of an exposé that refuted many of his extravagant biographical claims and gave details of criminal accusations against him.
Johnson was originally from Louisiana and became involved with Christianity in his youth. Johnson traveled with missionaries in Tennessee and South America before founding and leading the controversial Louisville-area Heart of Fire Church in the late 1970s. Heart of Fire eschewed the trappings of traditional Christian churches, and instead at times featured toplessness, cigarette smoking, underage drinking, anti-Islamism, and a tattoo parlor. In 1985, Johnson was indicted in an alleged scheme to set fire to his car for the purpose of insurance fraud, but the charges were dismissed in 1987 after he completed a diversionary program. After Heart of Fire was destroyed by church arson in 2000, Johnson was sued by his insurance provider, alleging insurance fraud; however, police never made any arrests, the lawsuit was settled in Johnson's favor, and the church was rebuilt.
Throughout his life, Johnson claimed to have been involved with many prominent Americans and in many important US events. In the 2010s, he became politically active, and despite a controversial campaign that included his own party leadership requesting his withdrawal, he was elected as a Republican to the Kentucky House of Representatives from the 49th District. After eleven months and nine days in office, an exposé by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting was publicly released; it included many refutations of Johnson's self-described biography, as well as details of a 2013 child sexual abuse allegation. After denying the accusations of his alleged victim, Johnson fatally shot himself on December 13, 2017.
Personal life
On October 18, 1960, Danny Ray Johnson was born to Jerry J. and Charlene Blocker Johnson in Bastrop, Louisiana; he was the middle child between sisters Teresa and Rita. Johnson graduated from Bastrop High School in 1979, and left home when 17 years old.By his early 20s, Johnson had fathered a child, divorced his first wife—Tylia Harris, and filed for bankruptcy in Louisiana. Per his 1985 Jefferson County Police Department arrest record, Johnson was tall and weighed.
Johnson married his second wife, Rebecca Wilson, in Jefferson County, Kentucky on February 14, 1987. By 2017, Johnson resided in Mount Washington, Kentucky, and had five children. Johnson was known for his hate speech, Facebook posts, "and general derision for African-Americans and Muslims".
Refuted claims
On October 18, 1985, police in Louisville, Kentucky found two people about to set fire to Johnson's 1982 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. The suspects told police that Johnson had paid them over to burn the car. Johnson initially signed a police report saying the vehicle was stolen, but later admitted to the insurance fraud scheme—he owed over on the vehicle, which also needed thousands in repairs. Felony and misdemeanor charges were dismissed in February 1987 after Johnson completed a six-month diversion program. In later years, Johnson said: "When the car came up missing, I didn't know what happened to the car. It was vandalized."To Johnson's claim of having been the "White House Chaplain" to Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, an expert in the field confirmed that no such position exists; all three presidential libraries also confirmed "find no connection between Johnson and the White House". The Rev. Dr. Cecil Murray of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles refuted Johnson's claim of setting up safe zones in that city during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, not only by virtue of not having seen the "golden-haired preacher from Kentucky" among the rioting people of color, but also because there were no "safe zones" during the six-day incident.
Johnson claimed to have seen the crash of United Airlines Flight 175 from his New Yorker Hotel room, a feat NBC News called unlikely for being in Midtown Manhattan, away from the towers. He regularly told of how he rushed to Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks, created an impromptu morgue, and administered last rites to victims for two weeks. Storm Swain, a professor of theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia who authored a book on chaplains at Ground Zero, invalidated every aspect of Johnson's September 11 claims. In 2017, the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York knew nobody who remembered Johnson. Johnson's 2016 and 2017 financial disclosures listed New York state workers' compensation as his only source of income.
Johnson had claimed, at times under oath, to hold a Doctor of Theology, a Doctor of Philosophy, and a Doctor of Divinity, the last of these from Kingsway University and Theological Seminary in Des Moines, Iowa; Kingsway confirmed that Johnson studied there, but said he did not graduate. In his 2016 election campaign, Johnson claimed that Ted Nugent had endorsed his election during a rally at Bowman Field; spokeswomen for the musician and airport both said they had no record of this.
Religion
Johnson pointed to a childhood miracle as the incident that spurred his religiosity: he said a BB gun accident left him blinded in one or both of his eyes, his parents took him to a physician, and that he was seven years old when his blindness was miraculously cured. During his adolescence, Johnson attended the Swartz First Assembly of God Church in Monroe, Louisiana; Pastor Gerald Lewis recalls that Johnson, to whom he was a father figure and mentor, stopped attending church without warning or explanation. After graduating high school at age 17, Johnson left Bastrop to work with the McKeithens—a Christian missions group based out of Nashville, Tennessee—for two years.When Dr. David Fischer was pastor of the Living Waters Church in Pasadena, California, he wrote a letter supporting alleged miracles performed by Johnson while Johnson was on a short-term mission to South America. Fischer said in his June 1991 correspondence that Johnson had cured a Venezuelan man of deafness and resurrected a Colombian man: "He spoke to death and commanded it to leave."
Heart of Fire Church
According to the church's website, Johnson founded Heart of Fire Church in 1977, at 5101 Bardstown Road, with himself as its bishop.Over its lifetime, Heart of Fire has drawn criticism from members of the local community and law-enforcement figures. Johnson frequently proselytized for political candidates from his pulpit, violating the conditions of Heart of Fire's tax-exempt status. Racism, toplessness, cigarette smoking, underage drinking, Islamophobia, and a tattoo parlor were all reported phenomena at Johnson's Heart of Fire Church throughout the years. Thrice in six years, the church was cited for selling alcoholic drinks without a liquor license; after a 2009 raid by the Kentucky Office of Alcoholic Beverage Control, Johnson was fined despite attempting to convince Judge Sheila Collins that the beer hidden from ABC agents was for communion rites.
After Dan Johnson died in 2017, his wife Rebecca took over as pastor of the church. , she was still president of Danny Johnson Heart of Fire Ministries, Inc.—doing business as Heart of Fire Church. The non-profit was still active and registered with the Secretary of State of Kentucky at 657 Bogard Lane in Mount Washington, Kentucky.
Arson
In mid-2000, Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company showed the non-denominational Heart of Fire Church was bankrupt: loans far exceeded the property's value, any potential sale, and the church's potential to ever settle. The church and Johnsons were also in financial straits with "dozens of bounced checks and credit card debts". Heart of Fire secretary and parishioner Michelle Cook explained how Johnson committed insurance fraud against Brotherhood Mutual to make money for himself.On June 12, 2000, the church was set afire. A witness saw a "white, late-model Cadillac pulling out from behind the church with no lights on driver was a white guy who might have had blond hair"; Johnson, who was blond and owned a white 1995 Cadillac, instead blamed the Ku Klux Klan, saying the hate group had threatened the church. No charges were ever filed in the church arson. The losses were estimated at $1–1.75million. Brotherhood Mutual sued Heart of Fire, saying that the church had been negligent in light of the alleged threats; both parties settled and the church was rebuilt.
Foreclosure
In the 1990s, the Clinton administration's Department of Housing and Urban Development began offering loan guarantees to rebuild black churches that were victims of arson. In 2003, Heart of Fire received the third-largest of these federal loans for ; the church used the money to buy the chancel it was leasing, and build a new fellowship hall-cum-bar. In 2019, Clinton-era HUD secretary Henry Cisneros described Heart of Fire's purchase and construction as not "meet the criteria that we originally had set". Less than a month after securing the guaranteed loan, and for the next 14 years, Johnson failed to have the loan forgiven. In 2009, the US federal government obtained the mortgage for Heart of Fire. In February 2018, HUD secured a court order of sale for the church—valued at —as the non-profit was more than in debt to the federal government. Heart of Fire was scheduled to hold a May 20, 2018 auction, the purpose of which was described to WDRB by Pastor Rebecca Johnson as:Rape allegation
At age eight, Maranda Richmond first attended Heart of Fire Church in 2004 with her father. She became friends with the Johnson children and considered Dan Johnson "a second dad". Richmond attended parties and sleepovers that were held at the church building as well as the Johnsons' house; occasionally alcoholic beverages were provided to the children by Johnson and other adults. Richmond told the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting that she was raped by Johnson 15 days after her 17th birthday ; she had been staying with his daughter in the apartment under the fellowship hall. The following day, the two exchanged messages over Facebook:Richmond and her parents went to the police in April 2013, but after failing to secretly record a confession from Johnson, the case was closed with no charges filed. Richmond saw a mental health professional the summer of 2013, and presented her "psychosocial assessment, notes and progress reports" to the KyCIR in 2017; the onetime honors student and drum major at Louisville Male High School had exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. After the KyCIR began investigating Johnson, the Louisville Metro Police Department reached out to Richmond and reopened the case at her request, but had made no actions as of five months later.