Eddie Johnson

Edward Lee Johnson Jr., also known as Fast Eddie, was an NBA All-Star for the Atlanta Hawks from 1977 to 1987.

After being banned from the basketball league in 1987 for excessive drug use, Johnson had several run-ins with the law. Since 1989, court records from Marion County, Florida track Johnson’s rather long list of convictions, which include burglary, battery, robbery, marijuana possession, possession of drug paraphernalia, and resisting arrest.

In August 2006, Johnson committed an even more heinous crime–the rape of a minor. Johnson entered a home in Florida’s Parkside Garden Apartments uninvited and found an 8-year old girl was babysitting her three younger brothers. He told one of the brothers to lock the front door and ordered the girl to her bedroom. There he pulled her shorts down, fondled her, and then raped her. In the girl’s statement, she said Johnson told her not to tell anyone of the incident. Johnson fled the apartment after committing the crime, and when the girl’s mother returned and learned what happened, she immediately called the police.

When Johnson was arrested, he was already awaiting trial for the rape of a 25-year old woman just a few weeks prior to the attack on the 8-year old girl. On October 28, 2008 Johnson was convicted of “sexual battery on a child under the age of 12 and lewd and lascivious molestation of a child under the age of 12”. The sentenced handed down was life in prison without the possibility of parole. Eddie Johnson is serving his life sentence in the Santa Rosa Correctional Institution in Florida.