When Kenneth Johnson’s mother died in 1994, she left behind a bank account she shared with her son — the one where her monthly Social Security benefits landed.
By then, Johnson was already a veteran of the Chicago Police Department. He would later retire as a commander. But rather than tell the Social Security Administration his mother had died, Johnson let the money flow until 2017. He spent her benefits on hotels and airfare and even withdrew hundreds from a police station ATM, records show.
And that means that, for 23 of Johnson’s 32 years with CPD, “Johnson was committing a federal crime every single month,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Jodrey wrote in a recent court filing. In all, Johnson stole $363,064.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah sentenced Johnson to six months of community confinement as a condition of two years of probation.
The judge said “you need to feel your liberty confined,” but he noted Johnson has a chronic illness and is “not a lost cause to society.” Typically, community confinement involves a stay at a halfway house.
Before his sentence, Johnson told the judge “I fully acknowledge my crime” and called it “the sword of Damocles that has been over my head for 23 years.”
“I am replete with misery and shame. I couldn’t ask anybody to come and stand with me” to show support, he said.
Though the sentencing of the once-lauded CPD leader was scheduled months ago, its coincidental timing deals yet another blow to the department’s reputation after Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday fired Supt. Eddie Johnson for “lying to me and lying to the public.” A further high-level shake-up may be on the way.
Kenneth Johnson pleaded guilty to the Social Security theft in May, and his defense attorney acknowledged recently that his crime was “motivated by greed.” Johnson retired as the commander of the 7th District in 2018, and he was once praised for overseeing declining violence in Englewood.
All the while, though, Johnson was scamming the federal government.
Prosecutors say Johnson’s crime came to light in 2017 after a Social Security program identified his mother — who would have then been 96 — as a beneficiary who had not used Medicare for three years or more. The Social Security Administration mailed a letter to her last known address to confirm her eligibility for benefits, but it never received a response, according to a court memo.
Authorities eventually discovered that Johnson’s mother had died in May 1994, at the age of 72. From June 1994 to November 2017, Johnson let the Social Security Administration deposit what added up to $363,064 into an account he held jointly with his mother. He withdrew all but 59 cents, according to Jodrey.
Johnson spent $398.50 of it at the Renaissance Hotel in Phoenix in December 2016, records show. He used another $229.88 to pay for flights from Chicago to Los Angeles and back in February 2017. Jodrey noted in a court memo that, at the same time, the Los Angeles Police Department hosted a Crime Fighters Conference attended by “senior police leaders from Chicago.”
Finally, records show Johnson withdrew $500 from the account using an ATM at the 7th District police station, where Jodrey noted “Johnson was employed as the District Commander earning over $160,000 a year.”
“Johnson decided to use his mother’s death as an opportunity to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from a program designed to assist the most vulnerable members of our community,” Jodrey wrote.
