Woman pleads guilty to pimping out teen girl in Macon gang prostitution case

Navon Johnson was 15 years old in 2007 when someone was fatally shot in Jones County after she and a group of her family members drove there to retrieve a cousin's belongings.

Johnson, who had stayed at the car by herself but didn't pull the trigger, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and served seven months in a youth detention center. Among those sentenced, her mother received 10 years, six of them in prison.

Released from prison and on her own with just an eighth-grade education, Johnson turned to prostitution. In 2012, she learned she was pregnant.

Johnson, now 24, pleaded guilty Thursday in Bibb County Superior Court to pimping a person under 18 and violating the state's Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act for her part in a gang prostitution case.

Arguing for leniency, lawyer Alan Wheeler explained his client's past and how she's worked to make a better life for herself and her child.

Johnson admits that she was nine-months pregnant in November 2012 when she took photos of a then-15-year-old girl and took $90 as payment to advertise the girl for sex on backpage.com, an online classifieds site, Wheeler said.

"(Johnson) didn't know she was underage," Wheeler said.

Had the case gone to trial, Johnson would have testified she had only seen the girl five times, he said.

Prosecutor John Regan said Johnson has admitted she was the bookkeeper and secretary for Macon's Money Over Everything gang, a group that's been linked to a string of violence in Bibb and Monroe counties, including the 2013 fatal shooting of two men in south Monroe County.

The prostitution case arose out of the investigation into the other cases, Regan said.

Soon after giving birth to her daughter, Johnson started working at a clothing store and in June 2013 landed a job at Sam's Club in Macon, Wheeler said.

Johnson got an apartment later that year and bought a car in early 2014.

Addressing the judge before her sentence was announced, Johnson tearfully apologized for her actions and said she wished she could take back her mistakes.

"I am not a menace to society. I am no threat to Macon or its people," she said. "I intend to do something great one day ... to be a good mother to my daughter and a good daughter to my mother."

She said she plans to move to New Jersey where her mother and 3-year-old daughter live. She plans to attend technical college, earn a degree in business management and get a real estate license.

Judge Howard Simms sentenced Johnson, who has been in jail since her arrest in June 2014, to 10 years on probation and 180 days in a probation detention center. She also must perform 80 hours of community service.

"If you get your realty license or a degree ... please send me a copy of it," Simms said.

Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report. To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398.

This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 5:57 PM with the headline "Woman pleads guilty to pimping out teen girl in Macon gang prostitution case ."