Accuser of Paterson Aide Plans to Pursue Her Case

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By DANNY HAKIM

ALBANY — The Bronx district attorney’s office expects to meet soon with Sherr-una Booker, who says she was the victim of a domestic assault last Oct. 31 by a top aide to Gov. David A. Paterson, a meeting that could be a prelude to a formal investigation.

Ms. Booker said in an interview with The Daily News and WNBC that appeared Thursday that she would seek to have charges brought against the aide, David W. Johnson, her former boyfriend.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she said in the interview. “I don’t want any woman to go through what I went through.”

The district attorney’s office has apparently been waiting for the conclusion of a state attorney general’s investigation of the Paterson administration’s involvement in the domestic assault case. After several months, that inquiry may be nearing its end.

Mr. Johnson, a former driver for Mr. Paterson who had risen to become one of the governor’s most trusted aides, was suspended without pay in February after details of Ms. Booker’s allegations became public. Subsequent revelations — that Mr. Paterson had contacted Ms. Booker while she was seeking an order of protection against Mr. Johnson, and that the State Police might have sought to discourage her from taking legal action against Mr. Johnson — led Mr. Paterson to drop his bid for election and prompted the resignations of five senior administration officials, including the top two officials at the State Police.

Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo began the investigation, but enlisted former Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye to take over because Mr. Paterson was a onetime political rival.

The Daily News-WNBC interview with Ms. Booker was the first time she had been heard from in months. In it, she did not discuss the details of the episode with Mr. Johnson, what the State Police did or the nature of her contacts with Mr. Paterson. But it came a week after it became public that Mr. Paterson recently met with Ms. Kaye’s investigators, a signal that the inquiry might be nearing a close.

Ms. Booker’s lawyer, Ken Thompson, said she was “standing up for her dignity, her self-respect and for all women.”

“That’s why she’s coming forward now,” he continued.

The office of the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, has been in contact with Ms. Kaye’s staff for several months, but has stood by rather than talk with Ms. Booker.

“We are waiting and looking forward to talking to the complainant,” said Steven Reed, a spokesman for Mr. Johnson. “We expect to be talking to her soon.”

Last Oct. 31, Ms. Booker called New York City police officers to her Bronx apartment, and she eventually swore out a complaint asserting that David Johnson had choked her, ripped off her clothes and shoved her into a mirrored dresser in the bedroom she shared with him.

Ms. Booker went to Family Court days later and obtained an order of protection but told the judge that she had been harassed by the State Police to drop her complaint. She pursued the case over the course of several months, but it was ultimately dismissed without prejudice in February after she failed to show up for a fourth court appearance. The governor spoke to her the day before she failed to appear in court, but has maintained he did nothing improper.

Mr. Reed said the district attorney’s office never had a chance to examine the case. “There never was a case; it never reached our office; there was never a complaint or an arrest,” he said.

Oscar Michelen, a lawyer for Mr. Johnson, wrote the district attorney on Thursday urging him not to proceed with an investigation. He noted that the police had not arrested Mr. Johnson the night Ms. Booker said Mr. Johnson assaulted her, and argued that was evidence that no crime had been committed.

“I ask on my client’s behalf that you not allow this matter’s prior notoriety to in any way impact the way your office would handle the situation,” Mr. Michelen wrote.

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