A court-appointed receiver will take over responsibility for Donald M. Johnson’s many properties to assure that any income from the properties is returned to the victims he defrauded of more than $600,000, rather than returning to his coffers.
Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer set that plan in motion during a one-hour hearing Friday in which his ongoing aggravation with Johnson, who has enmeshed his properties in a tangled web of ownership through trusts and familial partnerships, was palpable as he continued to struggle to extract truthful information from Johnson about his finances and many properties.
Clymer asked Johnson how much money he is holding from the rent he collects, and Johnson said $300. With a look of disbelief, Clymer immediately swore Johnson in.
“Tell me or you will go to jail now,” based on lying to the court, Clymer said. “How many properties do you collect rent from? Your days of lying are almost done.”
Johnson, 59, of Porter, pleaded guilty on Jan. 25 to a single Class C felony charge of a broker-dealer registration violation, a deal under which Johnson will serve four years on probation and must pay $604,500 in restitution to all of his victims, not just the one from the guilty plea.
He appeared in court Friday without legal representation after Clymer dismissed Johnson’s public defender during a May 30 hearing because Johnson wasn’t indigent.
If Johnson successfully pays his victims back and serves his probation, he can petition the court to have the case expunged from his record. He’s been paying $500 a month toward restitution since March, according to online court records.
The allegations stretch back to around 2007 and include multiple victims who, according to charging documents, lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate investments gone bad when they did not get the returns they were promised and couldn’t get back the money they put into the deals.
The duties and responsibilities of the receiver, likely a local attorney, will be spelled out during an Aug. 23 status hearing.
alavalley@chicagotribune.com
