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Pa. Attorney General pushes back on claims of misconduct in Harrisburg murder case

In a court filing last week, the Pa. Attorney General’s Office pushed back on a series of claims made by Lorenzo Johnson, who was convicted in connection ...

In a court filing last week, the Pa. Attorney General's Office pushed back on a series of claims made by Lorenzo Johnson, who was convicted in connection with a 1995 murder in Harrisburg.

Johnson has claimed investigators built the case against him by coercing and intimidating witnesses into giving false testimony as well as withholding evidence.

Johnson and Corey Walker are serving life sentences for the shooting death of Taraja Williams. The shooting happened in December 1995 on the 1400 block of Market Street. At the time, investigators said it was over a drug debt. Investigators identified Walker as the gunman and Johnson as an accomplice.

Agents in the attorney general's office spent about a year investigating 32 claims Johnson and his attorneys made about the handling of the case.

In a 94-page response filed in Dauphin County Common Pleas Court, the AG's Office asks the judge to dismiss all the claims without a hearing, saying the court lacks jurisdiction because the claims are "facially untimely," and that they "are replete with exaggeration and hyperbole."

In 2011, a federal appeals court ordered Johnson released from prison, saying the evidence in the case was not strong enough to convict him. About five months after he returned home to New York, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered him to go back to prison, saying the lower court "unduly impinged on the jury's role as fact finder."

Since then, Johnson's attorneys have submitted new evidence from additional witnesses, including several who say Johnson was not even in Harrisburg the night of the murder.

"My whole thing is, let the facts speak for themselves. I'm not guilty. I'm looking for justice. I'm innocent," said Johnson in a telephone interview Monday.

The Attorney General's Office did not respond to a request for an interview.

In the state's response to Johnson's claims, Sr. Deputy Attorney General William Stoycos notes agents approached the case "with an open and cautious mind and with a genuine desire to see that right prevails."

He goes on to write, "Johnson's everything-but-the-kitchen sink approach is... an act of desperation rather than a principled stand for justice. If persuasive information exists proving Johnson has been wronged by the system, why has it been cloaked in and obscured by a myriad of patently non-meritorious claims?"

He also criticized Johnson for questioning the credibility of the lead investigator and prosecutor who worked on the case.

"Perhaps most disturbing, however, is the fact that Johnson has recklessly unleashed the hounds of defamatory hell, publicly accusing and branding the career prosecutor and career police detective primarily responsible for his prosecution as corrupt and malevolent," Stoycos writes. "The facts available to the Commonwealth's investigators simply do not support these allegations."

Stoycos notes agents in the Attorney General's Office interviewed 20 of about 30 people identified by Johnson as having information relevant to the case. He also points out another eight people "identified by Johnson as crucial to his claims" refused to be interviewed.

Johnson said Monday he stands by the claims he's made and hopes Dauphin County Judge Todd Hoover will schedule a hearing on them.

"They don't want me in the courtroom because everything comes out. The whole object of this whole thing has been delay tactics to do damage control on their end," said Johnson.  "If we get in the courtroom, and (the judge) sees different, then so be it. But that's the chance I'm taking because I'm innocent."

To read the Commonwealth's response to Johnson's claims, click here: Commonwealth's Response to Lorenzo Johnson's Claims

 

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