Alecia Jeanetta Johnson, the former Fort Valley State University executive assistant to the president, was indicted Friday for prostitution and pimping in a scandal that rocked the tiny college last summer.
Prosecutors say that the 49-year-old Johnson, also graduate adviser to one of the oldest sororities on campus, performed sex acts in exchange for money and arranged to provide another prostitute to prominent men in the community.
She is charged with six counts of prostitution, three counts of pimping and two counts of solicitation of sodomy. The Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s office also indicted six men on one count each of solicitation of sodomy, as well as two counts each of pandering stemming from conduct alleged to have occurred in 2017 and 2018.
A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said the maximum penalty for each count of pimping and pandering is up to 12 months incarceration and/or a $5,000 fine. For solicitation of sodomy and prostitution, the maximum is up to 12 months in prison and up to a $1,000 fine per count.
» RELATED: How a sex scandal rocked a university and a town
Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In a release issued on Friday, the district attorney said the charges were “the result of a nearly year-long investigation into illegal conduct related to Fort Valley State University.”
But it was so much more for the small black college and the tiny town of 8,800 about 100 miles south of Atlanta.
In late 2017, months before anyone was charged or arrested, allegations surfaced and social media went crazy over rumors of a sex scandal involving an FVSU employee and possibly students.
The initial details left many stunned: that a prominent black sorority was entangled, as were a mortician who works part-time as a county commissioner, an assistant principal, a city manager, and former legal counsel for the university.
The GBI, with assistance from the Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, began an investigation on April 12, 2018, at the request of the Georgia Attorney General’s Office.
Johnson, 49, was accused of being the ringleader of the prostitution operation that also snared:
Credit: Photo: WSB-TV
Credit: Photo: WSB-TV
- Ernest Harvey, 47, of Fort Valley an assistant principal in charge of discipline at Huntington Middle School in Houston County.
- Kenneth Howard, 56, of Fort Valley, the city manager of Hinesville.
- Ryan Jenkins, 35, of Fort Valley.
- Charles Jones, 57, of Fort Valley, a former attorney for Fort Valley State.
- Devontae Little, 26, of Warner Robins.
- Arthur James Nance Jr., 46, of Cordele, the vice chairman of the Crisp County Board of Commissioners and a local pastor and mortician.
At the time Johnson was also the graduate adviser for her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.
After the scandal broke, the sorority began its own inquiry into "unauthorized activities and misconduct involving current and former members," according to a letter it sent to the Fort Valley State sorority chapter.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained a copy of the letter in April 2018 from the university through the Georgia Open Records Act.
The letter withdrew the chapter’s privileges, “pending the outcome of the investigation.”
Court dates have not been set yet.
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