May 19--A convicted murderer was acquitted Thursday on a charge that he threatened a Kane County probation officer when he angrily told the officer that he had killed before.
Kurt E. Johnson's words were "malicious and alarming" but did not rise to the legal level of a threat, Judge Linda Abrahamson said Thursday. The judge presided over the Oswego man's bench trial, which took place Monday.
Johnson, 53, served a prison sentence for the murder in Joliet in the 1990s of a man who was dating Johnson's former girlfriend. He was charged last year with threatening the probation officer as she adjusted a GPS anklet he was wearing.
Johnson was wearing the GPS anklet as a condition of bond after he was charged in 2013 with stalking a dancer who worked at an Elgin strip club. That charge came three months after he was released from prison after serving time for the murder.
The anklet had alerted a possible malfunction in April 2015, and Johnson had come to the Kane County Judicial Center in St. Charles to have it examined and adjusted.
Sara Fair, the probation officer who made the adjustment, testified Monday that Johnson was initially pleasant, but became hostile as she worked on the device's strap. At one point, she said, Johnson pointed angrily at her and said he had killed before and was either unafraid or willing to do so again.
He also said he had shared a cell with a serial killer and was not afraid of anyone, Fair and her supervisor, who also witnessed the incident, testified.
In her ruling, the judge said Fair, who was aware of Johnson's criminal history, had good reason to feel apprehensive about the encounter. But Abrahamson said that case law requires a threat must convey a specific threat, not a generalized one, which is how she characterized Johnson's utterances.
Johnson's attorney, Jim Ryan, argued Monday that Johnson was "venting" frustration over past malfunctions with the anklet and the underlying case involving the stripper. Co-counsel Jack Donahue called the judge's ruling cogent.
"She followed the law," he said Thursday after the ruling.
Johnson's case involving the stripper is still pending, as is a DUI charge from 2015 in DuPage County.
Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
