Most in the party had already turned their back on Johnson, calling for his resignation following the sexual assault allegation and his history of posting racist photos on Facebook that depicted President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as monkeys. He said he would not resign, calling the accusations part of a strategy to attack conservative Republicans nationwide. Louisville Metro Police Department detectives had reopened Richmond’s sexual assault case in October 2016, after our inquiries. Johnson held a news conference Tuesday at his church, denying the allegations with his wife by his side. "He was passionate about others, I saw it often yet he needed help himself," GOP state Rep. Jim DuPlessis, who sat beside Johnson on the House floor, posted on Twitter. Johnson's wife, Rebecca Johnson, said her husband was the victim of a "high-tech lynching" and announced she would run to replace him in the Legislature. It was as though I had never lived or never done anything I had ever done," he told reporters. She said she begged him to stop and eventually he did. In a Facebook message posted hours before his death, Johnson hinted that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder relating to what he witnessed in New York, details that he shared with friends through the years, including Republican state Sen. Dan Seum. Stallings denied the accusations in media interviews at the time. Records show she also struggled with financial and legal issues over the past three decades -- bankruptcy, bounced checks, unpaid bills and income tax troubles -- some of which were tied to the church. But before that, he was the pastor of Heart of Fire Church in Louisville, which prided itself on welcoming "real people." "It was a biker church, so there was lots of leather jackets, lots of long hair and people that if you ran into them on the street, you might have a different first impression," said David Adams, a political operative who worked with Johnson on his campaign. The sexual assault allegation came from Maranda Richmond, a former member of Johnson's church.
– "Dan is gone, but his story is far from over," says the widow of Dan Johnson, a Kentucky state lawmaker who killed himself Wednesday night after he was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. Rebecca Johnson says she plans to run for the Republican's House seat because "these high-tech lynchings based on lies and half-truths can't be allowed to win the day," the Louisville Courier Journal reports. A special election for the seat is expected in February. Authorities say the 57-year-old lawmaker shot himself in the head at a bridge in a remote area after leaving a Facebook post denying the accusation and saying "HEAVEN IS MY HOME," reports the New York Daily News. Johnson killed himself two days after the release of a Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting report that exposed the assault allegation, along with what it called a "web of lies" from Johnson, who proclaimed himself "pope" of the Heart of Fire Church, the AP reports. The center said that after a monthslong investigation, it could find no evidence to back up Johnson's claims that he set up a morgue and gave the last rites to hundreds of people at ground zero on 9/11, that he set up "safe zones" during the 1992 LA riots, that he was White House chaplain under three presidents—and that he once raised a woman from the dead. Executive Editor Stephen George says he is "shocked and saddened" by Johnson's death, but he stands by the story.