Deputies slapped handcuffs on a person at the criminal courthouse on Monday, but the Harris County sheriff said the one in custody makes his living defending alleged criminals.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez announced Jason Johnson's arrest after the law enforcement leader's Detentions Criminal Investigations and Security Division alleged the defense attorney slipped his jail inmate client sheets of paper laced with synthetic marijuana.
Johnson is charged with possession of a prohibited substance in a correctional facility and engaging in organized crime.
According to court records, an investigator was listening to jail calls for a different investigation and heard a plan set to unfold in the courthouse the following Monday, Aug. 5. Authorities used the information in the jail call to narrow involvement down to inmate Jamie Joel Rook-Perez, who is charged with murder .
Law enforcement conducted surveillance on Johnson, his attorney, during the hearing.
A woman who knows Rook-Perez showed up with an envelope that investigators said contained six drug soaked papers labeled as power of attorney. She gave the envelope to Johnson, who passed it on to Rook-Perez in the inmate holding area.
Investigators noted in the charging document that Johnson looked nervous in the hallways after the exchange.
The envelope was seized from Rook-Perez before he left the courthouse during a search of all the inmates in that holding area.
Later that day, charging documents read that Johnson had contacted the woman and said she and Perez were under investigation and that she would likely be arrested in the following days. She said he suggested that she leave town.
After originally asking for a $2,000 payment for the Aug. 5 court hearing, the woman said Johnson told her he no longer wanted it because "he didn't want a record of me paying him after yesterday," according to court records.
Investigators interviewed the woman, who has yet to be charged, and Rook-Perez.
Rook-Perez said Johnson was aware of what was in the envelope. He said he told Johnson in the days before the exchange that he had come up with a way to pay for his legal fees and used the phrase "pass the papers."
On Friday, Aug. 9, the Harris County District Attorney's Office received a letter from Vikram Vij, a defense attorney, notifying them that he now represents Johnson in an ongoing public corruption investigation, charging documents read.
Vij's letter was before any charges were filed. It is unclear how Johnson knew an investigation was underway.
Johnson was featured on ABC13 when he represented Spivey's, a Third Ward bar , in 2022, which the City of Houston deemed a nuisance and attempted to shut down.
If this sounds familiar, the Harris County Sheriff's Office took a 77-year-old lawyer, Ronald Lewis , into custody nine months ago, accusing him of the same smuggling. At the time, prosecutors revealed Lewis' arrest was allegedly part of a monthslong operation happening behind jail walls, theorizing the smuggling may have ties to inmate deaths last year.
SEE MORE: Numerous attorneys believed to be smuggling drugs into jail, Harris Co. Sheriff's Office says
In a news release, Gonzalez explained he created his Detentions Criminal Investigations and Security Division last year "as part of an aggressive effort to eliminate the flow of deadly contraband into the jail." He added implementations like drug-sniffing dogs and enhanced security screenings for jail employees and visitors were in place.
Investigators may file additional charges for tampering with a witness while looking into Johnson's case.
He is due in court on Tuesday morning.
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