MONROE — A Monroe man was sentenced Feb. 28 to 240 days in jail and three years on probation for several convictions related to alcohol-fueled offenses, including drunken driving.
Christopher Gary Johnson, 39, pleaded no contest to a felony fourth-offense charge of operating while intoxicated and two counts of felony bail jumping.
Conditions of his probation include continued treatment for alcohol abuse, payment of over $3,500 in fines, fees and other court assessments and no drinking. His driver’s license is revoked 30 months. Once he has his license back, he’s required to use an ignition interlock device in his vehicle for another two and a half years.
A felony charge of substantial battery was dismissed against Johnson, while numerous other charges including disorderly contact, battery and additional counts of felony bail jumping were dismissed but “read in,” meaning the judge could consider them at sentencing.
The convictions stem from arrests in 2017 and 2018 in Monroe.
According to court records:
On Oct. 9, 2017, a passerby downtown called 911 after seeing Johnson drag a woman from the driver’s seat of a vehicle, throw her to the ground and push her into the front passenger seat as she screamed for help. He then got into the driver’s seat and started driving.
When police located and stopped the vehicle, Johnson was found to have a blood-alcohol content more than twice the legal limit. The woman, a family member in her 60s, told police Johnson had been drinking all day and that he became violently upset when she refused to drive him around town to various bars to drink.
The following May, the same woman called police to report she and Johnson got into an argument and she had dropped him off by a tavern downtown. Officers located Johnson drinking inside the bar, a violation of bond conditions from the previous case.
Two months later, on July 17, 2018, Johnson was again arrested after he attacked the woman when she refused to stop at a liquor store so he could get more alcohol after he spent all afternoon drinking and gambling at a bar in Cedarville, Illinois.
She told police he hit her six to eight times across the face while she was driving, causing her vision in one eye to become blurry, and he later threw a phone at her like a Frisbee that struck the bridge of her nose. Her eye swelled shut and “was weeping some blood,” and the doctor who treated her injuries believed she had a concussion, according to one officer’s report.
Mitch Turner, a Madison psychologist who met with Johnson, submitted a letter to the court asking the judge “to consider resolving this case in a way that will meet the needs of the public and yet not jeopardize” the community-based treatment program in Dane County that Johnson “has worked very hard to obtain.”
Turner wrote that Johnson “seemed to be in crisis” when he came to him for counseling in September. Since then, they “have worked tirelessly to get his treatment and support plan in place” and Johnson was accepted into a state-funded program that provides substance abuse and mental health services.
As part of his sentence, Judge James Beer is allowing Johnson to serve his jail time in Dane County and with Huber release privileges for work or “any form of treatment.”