February 24, 2010
Questions of Influence in Abuse Case of Paterson Aide
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, DANNY HAKIM, DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI and SERGE F. KOVALESKI
NY TIMES

Last fall, a woman went to court in the Bronx to testify that she had been violently assaulted by a top aide to Gov. David A. Paterson, and to seek a protective order against the man.

In the ensuing months, she returned to court twice to press her case, complaining that the State Police had been harassing her to drop it. The State Police, which had no jurisdiction in the matter, confirmed that the woman was visited by a member of the governor’s personal security detail.

Then early this month, days before she was due to return to court to seek a final protective order, the woman got a phone call from the governor, according to her lawyer. She failed to appear for her next hearing on Feb. 8, and as a result her case was dismissed.

Many details of the governor’s role in this episode are unclear, but the accounts presented in court and police records and interviews with the woman’s lawyer and others portray a brutal encounter, a frightened woman and an effort to make a potential political embarrassment go away.

The case involved David W. Johnson, 37, who had risen from working as Mr. Paterson’s driver and scheduler to serving in the most senior ranks of the administration, but who also had a history of altercations with women.

On Wednesday night, in response to inquiries from The New York Times, a senior administration official said Mr. Paterson would request that Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo investigate his administration’s handling of the matter. The official also said the governor would suspend Mr. Johnson without pay. He declined to answer any specific questions about the governor’s role in the matter.

The woman’s lawyer said Mr. Paterson’s call came sometime between Feb. 1 and Feb. 8, the scheduled court date.

The lawyer, Lawrence B. Saftler, said that the conversation lasted about a minute and that the governor asked how she was doing and if there was anything he could do for her. “If you need me,” he said, according to Mr. Saftler, “I’m here for you.”

Mr. Saftler said the governor never mentioned the court case, but he would not say if the call had influenced her decision not to return to court.

The call also came as The Times was examining the background of Mr. Johnson, whose increasing influence with the governor had disturbed some current and former senior aides to Mr. Paterson.

The woman’s lawyer asked that she not be identified by name because she feared retaliation, in part because she works at a public hospital.

The alleged assault happened shortly before 8 p.m. on Halloween in the apartment she shared with Mr. Johnson and her son for about four years, according to police records.

She told the police that Mr. Johnson had choked her, stripped her of much of her clothing, smashed her against a mirrored dresser and taken two telephones from her to prevent her from calling for help, according to police records.

The woman was twice granted a temporary order of protection against Mr. Johnson, according to records of the proceedings in Family Court in the Bronx.

“I’m scared he’s going to come back,” she said, according to the records, in which the court referee noted bruises on the woman’s arm.

“I’m glad you’re doing this,” the woman told the court referee overseeing the case, “because I thought it was going to be swept under the table because he’s like a government official, and I have problems even calling the police because the state troopers kept calling me and harassing me to drop the charges, and I wouldn’t.”

She added, “I’ve never been through this before.”

Two days later, the woman was back in Family Court, and the order of protection was kept in place. And she again asserted that she had been pressured by the State Police.

“The State Police contacted me because they didn’t want me to get an order of protection or press charges or anything,” she told the court.

The State Police superintendent, Harry J. Corbitt, said he was told of the episode within 24 hours after it occurred. He confirmed that a state police officer had met with the woman, even though the episode occurred in the jurisdiction of the New York Police Department. He said the visit was made only to tell the woman of her options, including seeking counseling.

“We never pressured her, at least what I was advised; we never pressured her not to press charges,” said Mr. Corbitt, whom the governor appointed. “We just gave her options.”

He said that such an inquiry was customary for the department if an episode involved a high-profile person, and that it was done in the 24 hours afterward.

“It’s typical if it involves anything that might involve a media event; it doesn’t have to be a senior official to the governor,” Mr. Corbitt said. “It could be a politician or a high-profile physician, anything that might pique interest in the press, because it’s a special circumstance.”

The State Police perform a variety of functions, including patrolling the highways, counterterrorism, narcotics and homicide investigations. But the department also has a detail, or team, of about 200 officers who provide personal security for the governor and his family and traveling with them. These detail officers would have interacted frequently with Mr. Johnson.

It was a member of that detail who visited the woman. Mr. Corbitt, asked again if the woman had been pressured, said: “I’m not sure of her emotional state; I don’t know her. It just doesn’t make sense to me that we would do that.”

But Mr. Corbitt did allow that casual conversations may have occurred between the State Police and the woman that went further. “I’m sure that the person who spoke to her officially didn’t do that, and I can’t address any unofficial conversations because I have no way to,” he said. “If she had a conversation over coffee, perhaps somebody would have had that conversation, but if so I’m not aware of it.”

In a statement Wednesday night, Mr. Paterson said: “Serious questions have been raised about contact the State Police may have had with a private citizen who filed a complaint against a member of my staff. Any allegation of improper influence must be investigated thoroughly and completely.”

The statement continued: “Superintendent Harry Corbitt has directed the State Police to conduct an internal investigation into this matter. I have full faith and trust in the integrity and ability of the State Police to conduct a thorough investigation.

“Because of the seriousness of these allegations, and the sensitive role of this staff member in my administration, I am asking the attorney general to investigate the matter to ensure in the public’s mind that a comprehensive and independent inquiry has been conducted. Pending the outcome of the investigation, I am suspending David Johnson without pay.”

Orders of protection are not considered in effect until they have been served on the person accused of the offense. The records in the case make clear that the woman, over the course of weeks, had become frustrated in her efforts to serve Mr. Johnson.

On Nov. 4, Judge Andrea Masley of Family Court asked the woman if she had served Mr. Johnson.

“No, ma’am, he refused to,” she said. “He avoided it.”

At a hearing on Dec. 17, the judge asked a lawyer for Mr. Johnson, William J. Madonna, if he would accept service of the protective order on behalf of his client. He refused.

The judge asked the woman if she wanted to proceed. “Yes, I do,” the woman said.

The judge then ordered that a new summons be issued and set the next court date for Feb. 8.

The records of that proceeding are brief. Mr. Madonna was present, but not Mr. Johnson. And the woman was not present.

“We were never served,” Mr. Madonna said, apparently referring to the court papers.

“The case is dismissed without prejudice,” Judge Masley said.

Mr. Johnson has had three altercations with women, according to interviews with the women and the governor. Two of them involved the police, and one required the intervention of Mr. Paterson’s chief of staff at the time.

Last week, Mr. Paterson said there had never been a judicial finding that Mr. Johnson had been violent with women, and he characterized the Oct. 31 episode as a “bad breakup.” A spokesman for Mr. Paterson said last week that the governor had looked into the episode and that the complaint “had been withdrawn.”

The woman’s statement to the police, however, is a graphic account of a violent and menacing encounter in the apartment she shared with Mr. Johnson and her 13-year-old son.

According to the woman’s account, Mr. Johnson confronted her in their bedroom, choked her, tore her costume off, pushed her into the dresser and then continued to choke her with one hand.

In her account, she screamed for Mr. Johnson to stop and then screamed for the help of a friend who was visiting. The woman said Mr. Johnson first took one telephone from her to prevent her from calling the police, and then chased her into another room when she went to find a second phone. He took that phone as well, according to the woman’s account.

Mr. Johnson then turned to the woman’s friend and told her to leave, “if you know what’s good for you,” according to the woman’s account.

A reporter for The Times visited the woman’s Bronx apartment on Feb. 6. She was not home, but the reporter had a brief telephone interview with her. She confirmed that the episode had occurred and said she had not seen Mr. Johnson since Oct. 31.

Mr. Paterson, at a meeting with the editorial board of The Times on Feb. 8, said he was angry that a reporter had gone to the home of what he described as “an ex-girlfriend” of an aide. He suggested that the reporter’s real purpose had been to dig up damaging information about him.

The governor said he had met the woman only three or four times.

Mr. Paterson, who has championed the cause of battered women, then made extended remarks on the case of Hiram Monserrate, the former state senator who was convicted of misdemeanor assault against his companion and ousted from the Legislature. Mr. Paterson said he was offended that while the woman had been granted an order of protection against Mr. Monserrate, the senator’s aides had continued to have contact with her and assist her.

“The order of protection is designed to allow for independence of the victim,” he said. “This victim apparently had no independence.”

He said the conduct of the aides warranted a criminal investigation, perhaps for witness intimidation.

“There have got to be some issues or some questioning of this woman not on the witness stand about how she was handled,” the governor said. “Because that’s the whole essence of what domestic violence is. It’s control.”

One of Mr. Paterson’s earliest steps after becoming governor in March 2008 was insisting that the State Police end any meddling in political matters.

Mr. Paterson called on Mr. Cuomo to investigate the State Police, saying he believed there was a unit within the agency collecting information on public figures. He said such concerns led him to admit publicly, on his first full day in office, to having had extramarital affairs.

Mr. Cuomo’s report, issued in September 2009, did not find a rogue political unit per se but did find evidence of political interference by senior police officials, including an episode in which a police superintendent ordered changes to a domestic violence report involving a Republican congressman, John E. Sweeney, to make it less damaging. Mr. Paterson and his superintendent, Mr. Corbitt, have pledged to overhaul the agency.

February 16, 2010
Paterson Aide’s Quick Rise Draws Scrutiny
By DANNY HAKIM and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

David W. Johnson has worked for Gov. David A. Paterson for much of his adult life. He began as a young, ambitious intern from Harlem when Mr. Paterson was a state legislator. He rose to be Mr. Paterson’s driver, serving as a kind of protector and scheduler.

In recent months, however, Mr. Johnson’s ascent has been striking: he is now one of the most senior people in the governor’s administration, paid $132,000. He is described as Mr. Paterson’s closest confidant, a man with a designated room for his overnight stays in the Executive Mansion, and a broadening role in areas like campaign strategy, government initiatives and the management of the governor’s staff.

A review of Mr. Johnson’s rise and his history, undertaken after he emerged as perhaps the man closest to the state’s chief executive, shows that he was twice arrested on felony drug charges as a teenager, including a charge of selling cocaine to an undercover officer in Harlem.

The examination of his background, based on interviews and records, shows he has at least one other arrest, for misdemeanor assault in the 1990s, although there is very little publicly available about that case.

In a statement, Mr. Paterson noted how long ago the drug arrests had happened. “David Johnson has demonstrated, over the course of his adult life, that people can change their personal circumstances and achieve success when given a second chance,” he said. “I will not turn my back on someone because of mistakes made as a teenager.”

Mr. Johnson, 37, has also on three occasions been involved in altercations with women, two of which led to calls to the police. As recently as October, the police responded to a complaint of harassment at a Bronx address of a woman involved with him. It is unclear if the altercation was verbal or physical or both, but the case is listed as closed.

In 2001, when Mr. Paterson was a state senator, Mr. Johnson, according to a person who was present, punched a girlfriend outside the senator’s Harlem office. No arrest resulted, and Mr. Johnson, through a spokesman for the governor, said that he never touched the woman, that she had come to the office inappropriately and that she had been asked to leave by others. He declined recent requests for interviews.

The woman involved, who insisted on anonymity, said in a recent interview that Mr. Johnson had gotten violent with her in the episode. She said she did not file a formal report, but said she had filed an earlier domestic violence complaint to the police about Mr. Johnson. She declined to offer evidence of that.

A spokesman for Mr. Paterson said Mr. Johnson underwent a standard background check by the State Police in 2008, which found no criminal record. Regarding the October incident, the spokesman, Peter E. Kauffmann, said, “The governor looked into the matter, and the complaint has been withdrawn.” He said Mr. Paterson planned no further inquiry into Mr. Johnson’s history.

Mr. Paterson has made domestic violence a key issue in his career; when he was lieutenant governor, it was among his signature causes. In 2008, just a few months after taking office as governor, he signed a major expansion of New York’s domestic violence law to allow judges to issue civil protection orders against people in dating relationships, in addition to those who are married.

Last October, two weeks before the episode involving Mr. Johnson and the Bronx woman, Mr. Paterson opened a campaign to raise awareness about domestic violence, gathering with advocates for a lighting ceremony at the Empire State Building.

He has also become increasingly vocal in his criticism of former Senator Hiram Monserrate, who was convicted of misdemeanor assault last fall for dragging his companion down the hallway of his apartment building. On Friday, the governor praised the Senate’s move to expel Mr. Monserrate and spoke at length about the pressures that victims of domestic violence face from their batterers.

“This seemed like a classic case of a woman who was intimidated, who didn’t really understand what her independence could be, and was victimized,” he said of the Monserrate case, adding, “The reality is that it’s really just a prelude to another attack, in many instances.”

Part of Inner Circle

Mr. Johnson’s increasing prominence, and Mr. Paterson’s reliance on him, have worried some veteran aides to the governor, who themselves are trying to assist Mr. Paterson as he faces an enormous fiscal crisis and a daunting election effort. They would not speak by name, but more than four current or former officials expressed concern that Mr. Johnson and another aide, a former state trooper, had become the governor’s innermost circle and were simply not best equipped to help him tackle the multiple challenges facing him.

Some heads of significant government agencies have said they feel they have to go through Mr. Johnson, often known as D. J., to get to the governor. And several current and former administration officials said that Mr. Johnson’s dressing down of the governor’s Washington office in September contributed to the departure of several seasoned people from the office.

“I started getting messages from D. J. telling me to call certain players in my industry,” said one former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing the governor.

Mr. Johnson, the official said, started to manage administration press conferences, dictating the order and seating of speakers and calling agencies to request they draft statements on particular issues.

“We were all quite surprised about D. J. taking more of a policy role,” another former official said. “It seemed like it was a long way to come in a short period of time for a guy who had been the governor’s wing man.”

Recently, the role evolved further, as Mr. Johnson began shaping campaign strategy.

Bill Lynch, one of the governor’s longtime political strategists, said that he talked campaign strategy with Mr. Johnson and that it had been Mr. Johnson’s idea to hold a series of community conversations in New York City late last year.

Asked what made Mr. Johnson qualified to be involved in campaign strategy, Mr. Lynch said: “I don’t know much about his history other than his working for the governor. But as far as I’m concerned, his instincts on these campaign things are good, if not damn near perfect.”

Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright, a Harlem Democrat, said of Mr. Johnson: “I look at him as a gatekeeper. I actually think he’s done pretty well.

“He’s been with David for years. He is a good filter for David. David trusts him. And his influence has grown.”

Mr. Paterson first hired Mr. Johnson as an intern in 1999. His role, according to a co-worker from those days, was to be an advance man and to perform constituent services. He worked only about 10 hours a week but was considered “gung-ho,” the co-worker said, always volunteering to attend town-hall-style meetings and the like. He graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2002.

“He wanted to be in the mix,” the co-worker said, “and because he was from Harlem, he had a natural connection with people there.”

An Imposing Figure

Mr. Johnson, the colleague said, was also valued because of the imposing figure he cast. At 6-foot-7, with a booming voice, he made Mr. Paterson, who is legally blind, feel secure, and so he was often scheduled to travel with him.

Mr. Johnson also helped keep people in line on those occasions when a troublesome constituent threatened to raise a ruckus in the Harlem office.

“Every now and then it was good to have a big guy in the office,” the colleague said.

Mr. Johnson eventually became Mr. Paterson’s driver, and at that point their relationship was further cemented.

“When you’re going back and forth to Albany a few times a week, once you get past Exit 17, you’re spending a lot of time alone with the other person in that car and you’re going to talk,” the colleague said.

Mr. Johnson’s first known arrest was in 1989 when he was 16; he was handled as a youthful offender, and the records sealed.

Two years later, when he was 18, he was arrested on drug charges, this time after selling crack cocaine to an undercover officer, according to people with knowledge of the episode.

The arrest by a 23rd Precinct officer occurred on the corner of Madison Avenue and East 107th Street, about a block from his mother’s apartment. It led to his indictment five days later on a single count of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree with intent to sell, a felony for which he could have received up to 25 years in prison, the people with knowledge of the episode said.

Three months later, he pleaded guilty to a lesser felony, attempted criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, a felony with a maximum of 15 years; he was sentenced to five years of probation, which a law enforcement official said he completed without incident. Mr. Johnson was treated as a youthful offender, and the records of the case were sealed.

Mr. Johnson’s disputed encounters with women came to involve at least one senior aide to Mr. Paterson in 2001. Woody Pascal, then Mr. Paterson’s chief of staff, interrupted the altercation between Mr. Johnson and the woman who was then his girlfriend outside the Harlem office. Mr. Pascal said he offered the woman counseling.

“Mr. Johnson and a companion had some kind of dispute, and I broke it up,” Mr. Pascal said in an interview. “I sent Mr. Johnson in one direction, and I counseled her, and that was the end of the dispute.”

The police were not called.

The woman said Mr. Pascal “handled it all.”

She said she had filed a police report against Mr. Johnson for domestic violence before the episode outside Mr. Paterson’s office, but nothing ever happened to him.

“It was a long time ago,” she said. “They didn’t take things as seriously back then.”

Mr. Paterson’s office encouraged The New York Times to speak to Deneane Brown, a woman it said had been present for the episode.

Ms. Brown, who now works for the State Department of Housing and Community Renewal, said she saw a brief part of what she described as a heated argument, or lover’s spat, but no violence. She said she had remained friends with Mr. Johnson.

“If there had been anything violent, I’m trained in domestic violence, so I would have had a duty to file a report,” she said.

Deemed a Dating Dispute

Asked last week about the episode, Mr. Paterson said he was not aware of it. But the governor recalled a separate episode involving Mr. Johnson and a woman, which he said also occurred in 2001, where the police were called.

In Mr. Paterson’s description, Mr. Johnson was having a dispute with a woman he was dating, and he visited her home. When he arrived, the police were there and spoke to him.

He said Mr. Johnson told him of the episode when Mr. Paterson was about to become lieutenant governor on Jan. 1, 2007, because his staff members would be subject to background checks.

“I asked him, Was there an arrest? ‘No.’ Was there a complaint? ‘No,’ ” Mr. Paterson recalled. “There was nothing. So it just sounded to me like an argument between two people.”

The governor said he was aware that Mr. Johnson might have had another problematic encounter with a girlfriend last October in the Bronx. He described it, essentially, as a bad breakup.

Interviews with people who have been briefed on the police report indicate that the police responded at 9:50 p.m. on Halloween night, and that the dispute involved the woman’s costume and whether Mr. Johnson had torn it off her or menaced her further. Mr. Johnson was gone, the interviews suggest, by the time the police arrived.

The woman, in a brief interview this month, said that there had been an incident and that she had not seen Mr. Johnson since. She would not comment further.

Asked whether Mr. Johnson’s history had been considered before his most recent promotion, to director of executive services — he received a raise of $23,850 — Mr. Paterson said: “Obviously, it was a breakup. They know a number of people in common, and it just sounded like breakups you hear about all the time.”

Mr. Paterson also said that Mr. Johnson had grown significantly over the years and that he did not believe that Mr. Johnson had problems with women.

“In D. J.’s case, other than, you know, that he had broken up with a few women that he went out with, I have not found him to be that kind of person,” the governor said.

Referring to the October episode, he added: “I think in anybody’s history, you can come up with a couple incidents where they acted improperly. And this may, and I accentuate may, have been one of them.”

Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Confessore, David Kocieniewski, Serge F. Kovaleski and Jeremy W. Peters.