The president of the St. Helena Parish police jury was arrested Monday, accused of seeking a bribe to influence an emergency disaster relief contract after Hurricane Ida, the Louisiana Attorney General's Office said.
Frank E. Johnson, the police jury’s president since 2020, was booked into the St. Helena Parish jail in Greensburg around 11 a.m. Monday, said Millard Mule, a spokesperson for the Attorney General.
Johnson was arrested on one count each of public bribery and malfeasance, according to his arrest warrant.
Officials began investigating Johnson "based on allegations of official misconduct pertaining to disaster relief contracts, following emergency declarations resulting from Hurricane Ida," according to Cory Dennis, press secretary for the Attorney General's office.
He is accused of "soliciting a bribe in exchange for influencing an emergency disaster relief contract," Dennis said.
Johnson did not immediately return a text message or phone call Monday seeking comment on the allegations against him.
As president of the six-member police jury, he holds substantial sway over parish spending and personnel decisions — including after disasters like Hurricane Ida, which ravaged this pine-forested and sparsely-populated parish on the northernmost edge of the Baton Rouge metropolitan area. Cleanup from the storm cost millions across Louisiana, much of which went to private companies contracted by state and local governments.
In his most recent term on the police jury, Johnson has pushed for measures that would bring new jobs to the industry-strapped rural area, which has largely been bypassed by the economic success that appeared in nearby Livingston and parts of Tangipahoa Parish.
He expressed strong support for a solar energy project planned in his district near Pine Grove last fall. And, when a recent plan to bring a new sawmill to the area fizzled, he bemoaned how the plant could have ushered opportunity into the region.
St. Helena Parish Roads Superintendent Albert Franklin, left, and Police Jury President Frank Johnson, right, on a section of Nesom Road washed out by gravel trucks Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021 near Pine Grove, La.
But he has also clashed with owners of some businesses that sought to set up shop in the parish.
The developer who planned the sawmill said it failed to find a home in St. Helena because of disagreements with the police jury. When a gravel company set up shop in Johnson’s district, he fought with the owner fiercely after trucks tore up a road the parish had recently repaired. The plant operator said the road’s poor construction caused its rapid deterioration.
In 2011, Johnson was arrested and booked into the parish jail on a felony count of illegal possession of stolen property, after deputies discovered a four-wheeler that had been reported stolen, the sheriff’s office said at the time.
He was later exonerated by the Attorney General’s Office for his role in the incident, which he called a “misunderstanding,” WAFB reported.
Johnson’s current term on the police jury is set to expire in 2024, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State.