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OGDEN — A former narcotics officer facing drug distribution charges was ordered Tuesday to stand trial on two additional charges.
Don Henry Johnson, 31, a former Ogden police office and member of the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force, was bound over for trial on two counts of distribution or arranging to distribute drugs, a second-degree felony. The charges were added in January to two identical counts that Johnson has already been ordered to stand trial on.
Nicholas Lister, a former confidential informant for multiple police agencies, testified Tuesday of two purchases of Oxycontin that he said Johnson had him make in June and August 2014. Lister said he had primarily done methamphetamine purchases for the strike force, but Johnson — someone he communicated with frequently — told him police were building up a stock of pills to investigate someone looking to make a large buy.
A text message from Johnson to Lister told the informant: "We are trying to get a bunch for this deal, so whatever you can get together this week."
In another, referring to the deals Lister had cut with police through the years to avoid prosecution for his own alleged dealings by cooperating with investigations instead, Johnson allegedly wrote: "I may even keep you out of federal prison, save you like 14 years."
At both meetings, Lister said Johnson wasn't accompanied by other officers. At the August meeting, the informant claimed Johnson didn't provide a "chit," or a receipt, for the two of them to sign.
Layton police detective Kelly Rushton, who investigated both the previous and the new charges against Johnson, testified that evidence audits and Johnson's work record showed no report of the two pill buys.
Lister said he approached a federal prosecutor and his attorney about the buys from Johnson after he learned about the previous charges and as he faced his own federal drug indictment.
"It kind of all clicked that things that were said then didn't make a lot of sense," Lister said. He went on to add, "I thought it might affect what charges were brought against me federally."
On cross-examination, Johnson's attorney, Cara Tangaro, pressed Lister on the many cases across multiple counties that were either reduced or dismissed through his work with police, noting his career as an informant had been his "bread and butter" through his adult life, even as he fed his own daily methamphetamine addiction and operated as a dealer.
Tangaro asked the judge to find Lister "entirely not credible," noting conflicting testimony he gave about the vehicle Johnson was driving when they met for the alleged exchanges as well as his denial that he deleted his own text messages from the various phones he used while leaving Johnson's intact.
"There is no evidence other than this not-credible witness saying this happened," Tangaro said.
In a letter signed by a lieutenant in the strike force, Tangaro noted that Lister was no longer an informant, saying he could not be considered credible. Prosecutor Jason Nelson countered that it was ironic to say that Lister was to be considered credible when he was working with Johnson, but not afterward.
As he ordered Johnson to stand trial, 2nd District Judge Brent West said it will be up to a jury to determine whether Lister's testimony is to be trusted. Johnson will return to court July 20, and a jury trial originally scheduled for June on the initial two charges will be reset. Email: mromero@deseretnews.com Twitter: McKenzieRomero
