[StBernard] Gretna sex offender arrested for incident with Chalmette boy

[Westley Annis]

Gretna sex offender arrested for incident with Chalmette boy

Published: Monday, September 12, 2011, 5:38 PM     Updated: Monday,
September 12, 2011, 5:41 PM

By The Times-Picayune 

A registered sex offender accused of sex crimes with a 14-year-old Chalmette
boy was booked in Jefferson Parish on Sunday, the St. Bernard Parish
Sheriff's Office reported.

Byron Johnson, 43, of Gretna, also will be booked in St. Bernard with
second-degree kidnapping of the youth if he is released on bond in Jefferson
Parish, the sheriff's office said in a news release.

St. Bernard Chief Deputy Sheriff James Pohlmann said Johnson worked in
Chalmette and met the teen-ager on Saturday.

Johnson was arrested in Avondale and booked in Jefferson Parish with sexual
battery and indecent behavior with a juvenile after a Union Pacific Railroad
police officer saw Johnson and the boy in Johnson's car, parked near the
entrance of a railroad yard.

The officer called the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office after the youth
told him Johnson had asked him to perform a sex act, then tried to prevent
him from leaving the car, Pohlmann said.

The teen said he first saw Johnson on Saturday at a benefit car wash on
Paris Road. Johnson's job was near where the boy lives in Chalmette,
Pohlmann said.

On Sunday, the teen-ager was walking to a store near his home and Johnson
pulled up and gave him a ride to and from the store, Pohlmann said. In the
process, Johnson offered to pay him to clean and detail his vehicle in St.
Bernard.

The boy agreed and Johnson then drove to the Chalmette-Algiers ferry and
told him he'd rather go to the West Bank.

Johnson drove to Avondale and asked him to perform a sex act, the teen told
police.

Pohlmann said detectives with the Sheriff's Juvenile Division in St. Bernard
interviewed the teen-ager and decided to seek an arrest warrant to charge
Johnson with second degree kidnapping on grounds he got the boy to go with
him by lying to him.

Johnson has a lengthy history of arrests for offenses on minors, Pohlmann
said.

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