Kentucky Lawmaker’s Suicide Culmination of Prior Controversial Acts

A Kentucky state lawmaker accused of molesting a teenager is dead from an apparent suicide.

Police say 57-year-old Dan Johnson shot himself Wednesday on a bridge not far from his home outside Louisville. A day earlier, he denied molesting a 17- year- old in 2013.

Police found Johnson just outside his car Wednesday night with a single gunshot wound to the head.

In that Facebook post about two hours before his death, Johnson wrote, "the accusations…are false…" "PTSD…is a sickness that will take my life, I cannot handle it any longer.”

On Monday the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting published an article alleging that in 2013, Johnson molested a then 17-year old girl from his church at a New Year’s party. Johnson allegedly “slid his hands up, under her shirt and bra, and groped her…"and "forced his hand down her pants." 

Johnson denied the account during a sermon Tuesday and refused to resign. 

Johnson was elected to the state legislature in 2016 under an umbrella of scrutiny. In 1985 Johnson was indicted in an insurance fraud scheme after he admitted to paying people to torch his own car.

He reportedly was cited three times for selling alcohol from his church without a liquor license. 

And just three months before his election, Johnson posted photos on Facebook of then-President Obama and first lady Michelle depicted as monkeys. At the time, he called them "not racist" but "satire".