Ex-prosecutor denies on the witness stand that she tried to protect Ahmaud Arbery’s killers

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — A former prosecutor took the witness stand Tuesday to deny charges that she abused her power to protect the men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery in 2020, insisting she knew few details until cellphone video leaked online two months later that showed Arbery being shot dead in the street.

Former District Attorney Jackie Johnson cried as she recalled a brief meeting with Arbery’s mother soon after the video became public. Johnson had recused her office from handling the death case because Arbery’s shooter was the son of a former employee. She said her initial understanding had been that Arbery was shot while committing a burglary. The video told a different story.

“I felt like he was murdered,” Johnson said of her reaction to the video clip that showed the Black man running and another man standing in his path holding a shotgun. Arbery was killed by two close-range shots as he grabbed for the weapon.

Arbery’s parents had previously been told that police believed their son’s killing had been a justified act of self-defense. After seeing the video, Johnson said, she worried that they “thought I had covered up the murder of their son.”

The former prosecutor is on trial charged with violating her oath of office, a felony punishable by one to five years in prison. Prosecutors say she worked behind the scenes to get George Barnhill, a neighboring district attorney, assigned to Arbery’s death after he had already advised police the shooting wasn’t a crime.

“Did you ever ask George Barnhill: This is a friend of mine, he’s a coworker of mine. This is his child. Be sympathetic, find self-defense, anything like that? Did you make any suggestion ever?” defense attorney Brian Steel asked Johnson on the witness stand.

“No,” she replied.

Johnson was the top state prosecutor for coastal Glynn County when Arbery was fatally shot on Feb. 23, 2020. Father and son Greg and Travis Michael armed themselves and set off in a pickup truck after the running Black man, wrongly suspecting he was a burglar. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery.

Greg McMichael had retired months earlier from his longtime job as an investigator for Johnson’s office. About an hour after the shooting, he left a voicemail on Johnson’s cellphone asking her for help.

Johnson acknowledged talking with Greg McMichael seven times between the day of the shooting and the day the video leaked. But she denied ever offering him assistance or discussing details of the case.

“I told him I hope he understood our office was not going to be involved in the case,” Johnson said.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office is prosecuting Johnson. John Fowler, the lead prosecutor in the trial, on cross-examination questioned whether Johnson’s account of those phone calls could be trusted.

“Nobody else heard those calls,” Fowler said. “Those phone calls between you and Greg McMichael remain between you and Greg McMichael and nobody else.”

Johnson replied: “I’m telling you what happened.”

No one was arrested in Arbery’s death for more than two months until cellphone video of the shooting leaked online and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police. Both McMichaels and Bryan were later charged and convicted of murder as well as federal hate crimes.

Johnson lost reelection in November 2020, a few months after Arbery was killed. She was indicted almost a year later.

Johnson testified that the way she viewed Arbery’s shooting changed completely after she saw the video in early May 2020. She said she then realized Greg McMichael was likely “a murder suspect” and she contacted GBI investigators to provide voice messages he had left her after the shooting.

She also came face to face with Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, for the first time outside the courthouse soon after the video became public.

“She called my name. I didn’t know her before I’d seen her on television,” Johnson said through tears. “And I walked over to her and she told me, she said, `I’m Ahmaud’s mother.’ I grabbed her hand and I said, `I’m so, so sorry about your son.’”

The prosecution suffered a blow after resting their case Monday when Senior Judge John R. Turner ordered Johnson acquitted of a second charge that she obstructed police investigating Arbery’s death. Turner granted a rare directed verdict after concluding there was “not one scintilla of evidence” to support that charge.