Ex-NOPD officer ordered jailed without bond

On Tuesday of last week, Orleans Parish Criminal Court Judge Karen Herman postponed the sentencing of former NOPD Officer Wardell Johnson and ordered that he be jailed without bond after he pleaded guilty last October to discarding evidence in the case of a fellow officer who was murdered while transporting a suspect to jail.

Johnson, a 12-year NOPD veteran, pleaded guilty on Oct. 21 to malfeasance in office and two counts of obstruction of justice. He resigned last fall and faces up to 40 years behind bars.

The case involves the murder of NOPD Officer Daryle Holloway by Travis Boys, 33, while Holloway was transporting Boys to jail on June 20, 2015.

Judge Herman said she would delay sentencing Johnson, 40, until after Boys’ murder trial, which could potentially take months or years. Johnson is expected to testify in Boys’ trial.
Herman said she saw no way to justify allowing Johnson to remain free while awaiting his testimony in Travis Boys’ trial and his own sentencing.

Defense attorney Robert Jenkins told Nola.com/The Times-Picayune that he wouldn’t share information about the location where Johnson will be jailed until his testimony and sentencing but said he would not be placed in general population because of concerns for his safety.

“He’s going to be a witness in that case, though they have not set a trial date in that case,” Jenkins told Nola.com. “That’s a death (penalty) case they’re still trying to get a second attorney on board. I can’t tell you when that will be, but any time (Johnson) is serving now, he gets credit for that.”

Johnson was arrested July 6, 2015 in the case which involved the suspect, Travis Boys somehow managing to shoot Officer Holloway before exiting the NOPD vehicle as he was being transported to jail on a weapons charge.

Police have not said where the gun Boys was allegedly carrying at the time of the murder came from, whether officers missed the weapon while arresting the suspect hours earlier or whether Boys somehow gained access to the weapon while he was being transported.

Boys, still in handcuffs, somehow managed to elude authorities for several days and was eventually arrested in a nearby home that reportedly belonged to another NOPD officer whose son was allegedly acquainted with Boys.

After Johnson was arrested and placed on emergency suspension, the NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau interviewed the officer and looked at body-cam footage from another officer involved in the earlier arrest of Travis Boys and determined that Officer Johnson had discarded evidence obtained at the scene of Boys’ arrest on the weapons charge.

NOPD officials said Johnson “deliberately” tried to leave a .40 caliber casing at the scene of Boys’ arrest and not process the casing for evidence. “In addition, detectives learned that Officer Johnson recovered a box of unused .40 caliber bullets at the scene and did not process it as evidence in the investigation,” NOPD officials said.

Public Integrity Bureau detectives said Johnson initially told them that he could not recall where he left the box of unused bullets and couldn’t explain why he didn’t list the box as evidence.

But the NOPD said shortly after the interview, detectives observed Johnson throwing the box of bullets out of his car window while driving in eastern New Orleans near the intersection of Morrison and Downman roads.

This article originally published in the April 11, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.