Wanted Former Prosecutor Had Coke & Pot at Morris Bar: Cops

MORRIS, IL — A former prosecutor and Grundy County State’s Attorney candidate who was jailed Christmas Eve on drug charges passed off bags of coke and pot to a man at a Morris bar before she was taken into custody, police said.

Elizabeth Johnson, 34, was wanted on a Will County warrant for skipping court last week. She was supposed to make her first appearance on a charge of resisting the police.

The Grundy County Sheriff’s Department learned Johnson had just walked into Honest Abe’s Tap & Grill on Route 47 shortly after 1:30 a.m. Saturday, police said, and deputies went over to arrest her.

Bar security told Johnson that the cops were there for her, police said, and she “grabbed her jacket and told (a deputy) to hang on one second.”

“She then walked over and I watched her with her left hand pass something to a male subject at the bar,” the deputy said in a report, adding, “the male subject was later identified as Philip Centracchio.”

“I grabbed Elizabeth by the arm and told Philip to hand me what he just put his his right jacket pocket,” the deputy said. “He quickly handed me two small twisted cellophane bags and I identified them as looking like cannabis and cocaine.”

Johnson was taken to the Grundy County jail. She was transported to the Will County jail this morning.

Last month, Johnson was arrested and jailed after she scuffled with Will County deputies, police said. Her boyfriend, Michael Haldorson, had reportedly called the cops on her when she wouldn’t stop pounding on his door.

When she was arrested that time, Johnson was also charged with possessing marijuana after deputies found 10 grams of it in her father’s Camaro, police said. The Camaro was stuck in the mud in a ditch near Haldorson’s Lockner Boulevard home.

Haldorson is on home detention while he faces drug and weapon charges in federal court. He was caught with cocaine, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms and pipe bombs while on his way to a drug deal, a federal agent said, and he had a pistol stashed in a storage locker.

Johnson represented Haldorson on the federal case for nearly a year. She has since withdrawn as his attorney.

Johnson was a Will County prosecutor until September 2011. She was hired by the state’s attorney’s office after completing its special drug court program.

“Life was spinning out of control. And (Johnson) knew a felony conviction would prevent her from attending law school and becoming a lawyer. It had been her dream career since she was a girl and she would dress up with an old briefcase while pretending to be in court,” the state’s attorney’s office said in a 2011 press release.

“In the ultimate validation for the program, State’s Attorney (James) Glasgow, the same prosecutor whose office filed the felony charge against her when she was a teenager, recently welcomed her back to his office, this time as a new assistant state’s attorney in his misdemeanor division,” the press release said.

Johnson’s campaign for Grundy County State’s Attorney ended with her defeat in the March primary.

In May, Johnson was charged with taking off from an accident she caused when she crashed her truck into the back of another vehicle.

The other driver, Dawn Brunker, said Johnson boasted of her legal background and claimed she didn’t have to provide any information.

“She knew the law and she was a lawyer and didn't need to give me her insurance info or name,” said Brunker, who told Patch she snapped a cell phone photo of Johnson before she drove away.

Johnson’s traffic cases remain pending.

photo via Grundy County Sheriff's Department