By Steve Neavling
A Secret Service officer charged with raping a female ATF agent was acquitted Thursday.
Joshua L. Johnson, 32, was found not guilty by a jury after one day of deliberations, The Washington Post reports.
Johnson was accused of raping the agent in a hotel room in Alexandria, Va., in June 2020.
Johnson stood trial for a second time after the first one was dismissed by a judge when a juror was disqualified and an alternate was not given appropriate legal instructions.
Johnson, who received the U.S. Homeland Secretary’s Award for Valor for defending the White House from a gunman in 2016, testified during both trials and maintained his innocence.
The ATF agent also testified during both trials.
“I just remember fixating on the clock, because I remember thinking it was late, and I had to be up early in the morning,” the ATF agent testified about the encounter. “I was numb. I was so in shock because I never thought he would do something like that. That wasn’t the type of relationship we had.”
They had met on Instagram around 2015 and were “friends with benefits,” hooking up for consensual sex once or twice a year.
During their last encounter, the agent testified that they had consensual sex but she asked him to stop, and he did. But after she went to sleep, she testified, Johnson pinned her down and raped her without wearing a condom.
