JoCo teacher threatened with audio release of sexual conversation, judge testifies
The extortion trial of Johnston County school board member took an extraordinary step Wednesday when a Superior Court judge took the witness stand inside the courthouse where he serves, testifying that a school teacher and political friend told him the board member was “pressuring” her to provide a letter denying their love affair.
On the witness stand, Judge Paul Holcombe said Johnston County teacher Angela Barbour was active in Republican politics, served on the GOP women’s group with his wife and volunteered for his campaign to be judge.
In the spring of 2022, near the primary election, it “basically came out to sort of everybody” that Angela Barbour was having an affair with Johnson, who served on the school board.
During early voting that spring, Angela Barbour asked for a private moment with Holcombe while they were at a polling place in Smithfield. When they stepped away between two parked cars, she told the judge about a FaceTime call she received from congressional candidate DeVan Barbour IV, during which he spoke about her “attractiveness and desirability.”
She told Holcombe that she had described the call to Johnson, who recorded their conversation and was now threatening to release the audiotape unless she wrote a statement saying their affair never happened. Angela Barbour told the judge she had also alerted Smithfield police.
“I told her that she should not acquiesce to what Ronald Johnson was asking her to do,” Holcombe told jurors, “that she should make it very clear to him that she was not going to do what he wanted her to do.”
He urged Barbour instead to reconcile with her husband, he testified.
Angela Barbour and DeVan Barbour are not related.
A cryptic text from an out-of-state phone number
Johnson’s trial on extortion, obstruction of justice and willful discharge of duties case is nearing its end, and the school board member remained undecided Wednesday about whether he would testify now that prosecutors with the state Attorney General’s office have presented all their evidence.
Holcombe, the prosecution’s final witness, told jurors he is an “elected official” in state government after a lengthy legal discussion about whether addressing him as “judge” would give his testimony extra weight.
Last week, candidate DeVan Barbour testified Johnson sent a “cryptic” text from an out-of-state phone number weeks before the primary election in 2022, telling him that “make-or-break” information about his campaign was about to go public and instructing him to meet behind a Clayton gym.
On Wednesday, an investigator with the Johnston County district attorney’s office said Johnson, the school board member, had sought multiple apps that disguise phone numbers so that they appear to come from other phones.
When he arrived at Clayton Fitness gym, DeVan Barbour said Johnson got into the passenger seat of his pickup and gave him an earbud connected to a cellular phone. After he listened, Johnson would tell him that he wanted Angela Barbour to write the statement about their affair, and he would later warn the congressional candidate that the message about his “inappropriate” conversation with the teacher was about to come out.
Johnston Co. teacher asked if she’d have sex and record it
On the stand last week, Devan Barbour described Johnson as “malicious.” But his lawyers have argued that he sought only to help the fellow Republican, and that when DeVan Barbour said the proposal sounded like blackmail, he backed off and told him to forget it.
Johnson never released the recording.
Angela Barbour testified last week that Devan Barbour, the congressional candidate, called her via FaceTime and appeared naked in front of a mirror. She also said Johnson asked if she would have sex with DeVan Barbour and record it.
Holcombe said he knew Johnson both from his days as a Smithfield police detective and from the campaign trail, and after the primary election polls closed in 2022, he went to a watch party to see the results.
After he arrived, he overheard “raised voices” in what sounded like a disagreement. He recognized Angela Barbour’s voice and stepped behind the area where food was being served, where he saw her with Johnson.
He said a polite “hello.”
“It was clear they had been in an extended discussion at that point,” Holcombe said, but there were no more raised voices. “My purpose was to let her know I was there and give her an opportunity to not have that conversation.”
The trial continues Thursday.