SLED: Embattled solicitor Johnson used a staff investigator to track his ex-wife
Embattled 5th Circuit Solicitor Dan Johnson in 2011 enlisted one of his staff investigators to help him track Johnson’s ex-wife with a hidden GPS device, according to a State Law Enforcement Division report released to news outlets Thursday.
The tracking — and the ensuing dispute between Dan Johnson, an FBI agent and Johnson’s ex-wife in a restaurant parking lot — was investigated then by SLED and the S.C. Attorney General’s Office. Both agencies found Johnson guilty of no wrongdoing.
But as state and federal law enforcement agencies investigate Johnson's recent spending of public money on travel and luxury, the 2011 SLED report raises additional ethical questions about his overall behavior as a public official.
“It’s just not smart. It looks sleazy. It looks improper,” said John Freeman, the University of South Carolina law school’s professor emeritus on professional ethics. “The taxpayers are left to say, ‘What are we buying with our tax dollars? What kind of service are we getting? What kind of people are working for us that this is going on and they don’t see it as a problem?’ “
Johnson has filed for re-election despite a flurry of recent news reports into questionable spending by his office.
Johnson’s lawyers, Wally Fayssoux and Beattie Ashmore, would not comment last week when asked about the 2011 incident.
Neither would Beth Drake, the U.S. Attorney for South Carolina, whose office is investigating Johnson’s office spending.
The 2011 dispute between Johnson and the FBI agent sparked an investigation by SLED and was described in a detailed, 124-page report.
The dispute occurred after Johnson had one of his 5th Circuit staff investigators, Cambo Streater, place a hidden tracking device under Johnson’s ex-wife’s car, according to the report.
One evening in June 2011, the report states, Johnson tracked his ex-wife, Columbia attorney Kana Rahman, to the parking lot of the Thailand Restaurant on St. Andrews Road in Columbia. She was sitting in a car with the FBI agent, a legal client of hers, and Johnson showed up.
Rahman had been in a romantic relationship with the FBI agent, but the purpose of that meeting was so the FBI agent could give her a check for some legal work, both said in statements to SLED.
An intermediary for Rahman told The State she declined to comment because she has “moved on with her life.”
Also according to the SLED report:
Seeing the pair in the car, Johnson walked up to the vehicle with a video camera and began to film the pair. The three exchanged words.
After the encounter, the FBI agent told his supervisor that Johnson had threatened to shoot him during the encounter, according to the SLED report.
Johnson vehemently denied he made the threat. Rahman initially supported the FBI agent. But she later changed her story, the report shows.
"The truth is, I was scared and it all happened in a minute or less," Rahman wrote in a second statement to investigators.
Johnson does not make any such threat in his own video of the incident, footage released to media outlets Thursday shows.
A reporter for The State looked into the incident in 2012.
Attorney General Alan Wilson told The State at the time there were no prosecutable offenses in the SLED report. “We prosecute crimes — not alleged poor judgment,” Wilson said.
Then-SLED chief Reggie Lloyd said his office considered whether Johnson had illegally stalked his wife. In the end, SLED determined no laws were broken and that Johnson was not a threat to anyone.
In an interview in 2012, Johnson said his investigator, Streater, had installed the tracking device — which he borrowed from a former business partner — on his own time, not while working.
Streater placed the device — later discovered by FBI agents — just after 6 p.m. one evening in early June 2011, according to the SLED report. A few days later, Streater told SLED agents, Johnson told him the tracker wasn't working properly.
So, Streater told SLED, he removed the device from Rahman's car — parked at the courthouse — and re-attached it the next night after 10 p.m.
A request to speak to Streater through the 5th Circuit Solicitor's Office was not answered Thursday.
Johnson told investigators he had the tracker placed because he was suspicious she was being unfaithful during their effort to reconcile their marriage.
"I just needed to know that she was full of it," he told SLED, according to the report.
Another factor in SLED’s decision not to press charges against Johnson was that the FBI agent flunked the lie detector test when asked about the threat, according to the SLED report.
Reached Thursday for comment, Don Wood, a supervisory special agent at the FBI's office in Columbia, said: "We don't have anything else to say. We're not going to comment on internal matters."
At the time, Lloyd said, SLED agents probed every angle, including having behavioral science experts analyze Johnson’s statements and demeanor to see if he posed a threat to anyone.
“We even looked at possible stalking and determined it wasn’t stalking,” Lloyd said.
In the end, SLED concluded no laws had been broken and sent its record to the Attorney General’s office for its review, Lloyd said.
The Attorney General’s office concluded “there is no prosecutable offense described in the (SLED) report,” according to a letter written by Allen Myrick of that office.
Johnson is seeking a third term in the 5th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, but is facing a Democratic primary challenge from criminal defense attorney Byron Gipson.
Spending in Johnson's office — on foreign and U.S. travel, luxury rental cars, health club memberships, high-priced meals and petty cash — is under investigation by federal and state law enforcement officials after the release of thousands of spending records by a Columbia-based nonprofit, Public Access to Public Records.
This story was originally published April 5, 2018 at 12:04 PM with the headline "SLED: Embattled solicitor Johnson used a staff investigator to track his ex-wife."