We know D.C. Get our free newsletter to stay in the know.
Columbia Heights ANC commissioner Lenwood Johnson is getting some unwanted publicity this week, after the Washington Post‘s Mike DeBonis revealed that he’s been using a government-issued phone to call adult phone lines. Johnson calls the lines, with names like D.C. Raven and D.C. Alibi, so much that he spent 158 hours on the phone with them.
For his part, Johnson claims he says he uses the lines to stay awake on long drives. But this is not Johnson’s first brush with notoriety. Witness, a short history of Johnson’s misadventures:
Jan. 2010: Johnson tells DeBonis, then at City Paper, that he sometimes illegally carries an unregistered gun. That admission earned him a police raid, which did not produce a weapon.
Sept. 2011: In an email list discussion, Johnson tells one constituent he should “be embarrassed by your own bitchassness.”
April 2012: After constituents complain about a cat carcass that hasn’t been cleaned up, Johnson jokes “You should call a local carry-out (any ethnicity). ;).”
With all this, it’s hard not to wonder if Johnson is the city’s most exciting ANC commissioner. But for that, he would have actually live in D.C., which he might not. DeBonis points out that most of Johnson’s adult calls came from Gaithersburg, not the District. Johnson responds that he doesn’t spend much time at his Columbia Heights home because he’s not happy there.
Phone picture by Shutterstock