New Orleans, La. -- After pleading guilty in federal court, former councilman Jon Johnson was in the process of receiving a bond when federal investigators discovered an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Kenner.
"It was for failing to return a leased car and he said, 'I don't know anything about it,'" says Julian Murray.
Murray, Johnson's attorney, calls the charge ridiculous.
According to the Kenner Police report, when Johnson rented the car in August of 2005, he listed an address on Deslonde St., an area ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Until just weeks ago, that house in the Lower 9th Ward had yet to be renovated.
The report states that the 2005 Chevy Classic was supposed to be a short-term rental by Johnson from Vanguard Car Rental, now under the umbrella of Enterprise.
Murray says Johnson told him he did return the car.
"I said, 'When did you bring it back?' He said, 'Just before we left, right before Katrina hit... I just took it to the place. There was nobody there, so I just left it at the rent-a-car place,'" recalls Murray.
According to the report, the rental company did not receive the car, so it sent a certified letter to the Deslonde address on November 2, 2005, demanding that the car be returned.
"They had no response back from him. They call the Kenner Police Department and what we did is we issued a warrant," says Lt. Wayne McInnis of the KPD.
The warrant was issued in January of 2006.
Johnson's attorney says Johnson doesn't remember if he received a certified letter or not, but he does remember filing a police report of his own around the same time.
"He said, 'The only thing I could have been making a police report on would have been that car. If they had sent me a letter telling me, if you don't have the car to bring it in, report it stolen, I would have gone in and reported it stolen,'" says Murray.
Murray says he was in the process of trying to retrieve that police report to prove that Johnson was trying to take care of the situation, but time was running out.
"The people at pre-trial services said 'Look, you can't have an outstanding warrant if you're out on bail on federal court, so you've got to turn yourself in,'" says Murray.
Johnson turned himself in to Kenner police Tuesday on a felony warrant of failing to return a leased motor vehicle. He was booked and released on a $5,000 bond.
Some wonder why Kenner police hadn't picked up Johnson a lot sooner, if a felony warrant was issued for an arrest in 2006.
"The patrolman put the warrant in the system because he was not aware of who Mr. Johnson was at the time. It wasn't that the rental car place eluded to us who Mr. Johnson was. I'm not even sure what Mr. Johnson's status was in 2006, so the warrant went into the system," says Lt. McInnis.
Johnson was not on the New Orleans City Council in 2006.
Kenner Police say officers did look for him at the Deslonde address back then, but when Johnson couldn't be located, the warrant was placed in the system.
As far as the whereabouts of the missing car after all these years, neither Johnson's attorney nor Kenner police seem to have any idea.
