An ex-con who is friends with woke DA Alvin Bragg and appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast last month has been charged with murder after a severed head was found at a Bronx apartment.
Justice reform advocate Sheldon Johnson, 48, told the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast on February 1 about his journey ‘changing his life around’ after being jailed for 50 years for two violent robberies.
He regaled Rogan’s audience with tales of his rise to the top of one of the prison’s most notorious gangs, before insisting it was all behind him.
‘I’ve been doing bad for so long I’m going to try to do something good, if all else fails I can go back to doing something bad,’ he said at the time.
Just a month after the episode aired, Johnson was charged in relation to a dismembered body found in a bin and a head stashed in a freezer belonging to victim Colin Small, 44.
Sheldon Johnson, 48, has been charged with murder after a severed head was found at a Bronx apartment
The justice reform advocate appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast on February 1 to talk about how he turned his life around. He was arrested weeks later
Johnson, who works with at-risk youth at the Queens Defenders in New York, joined Rogan to start February to discuss his justice reform advocacy.
During the chat, he admitted to dealing drugs and robbing those who could not settle their debts – acts for a judge reportedly branded him, ‘a menace to society.’
He described robbing a debtor and his girlfriend in the 1990s with the help of a gang of accomplices, one of whom pistol-whipped the victim leaving him with a head wound.
Johnson also admitted he ‘roughed up’ a second robbery victim, although he insisted the man was not physically harmed. Johnson was given consecutive 25-year sentences for the crimes.
While in prison, the convicted felon said he was smoking weed and drinking ‘jailhouse hooch.’
‘I was in a gang, I was top of the food chain. I had my own nation under me, I wasn’t just like a random gang member,’ Johnson told Rogan.
But he claims that stints in solitary confinement, where he was restricted to a diet consisting of bread with cabbage and carrots six days a week, helped him rethink his approach to life.
‘I was really looking at myself and reevaluating and thinking, “what the f*** are you doing”,’ Johnson explained.
‘I remember thinking, “what are you going to do? Can you live out the next 48 years like this?” I said I couldn’t do it.’
Johnson entertained Rogan with tales of brutal solitary confinement and prison gang politics, boasting that he was ‘at the top of the food chain’
On the night of the alleged murder, the suspect was seen wearing a blonde wig in the apartment building, potentially as a disguise
Johnson was seen transporting a large number of bags to and from the apartment, and the building’s super speculated that he was ‘hiding something,’ officials siad.
Johnson said it was thinking about his wife and his son growing up hearing stories of his ‘notoriety’ that spurred him on even further.
‘When I got out [of solitary] I made a decision that I was going to walk away and I didn’t care about the consequences,’ Johnson explained.
Johnson added the gang was happy for him to take a step back because he caused problems for them due to his strict adherence to ‘street rules.’
‘I was what you call an authoritarian, I was a rule guy. I like rules, I like structure, I like things to be a certain way,’ he told Rogan.
‘This begins my journey. I got into school, I got my GED.’
The uplifting story is a far cry from the narrative painted by cops’ grisly discovery of Small’s remains this week.
Neighbors allegedly told investigators they heard a victim pleading for his life before two shots came from the apartment, sources told the New York Post.
Neighbors claimed they heard a victim screaming for help through the walls, pleading with the alleged killer: ‘Please don’t… I have a family’
Johnson, pictured being perp-walked from the NYPD 44th Precinct on Thursday, where he yelled, ‘I’m innocent!’ to reporters as he was led away in white overalls
Johnson is a well-known criminal justice activist in New York City
Before the grisly discovery, Johnson was spotted in chilling surveillance images appearing to disguise himself in a blonde wig and transporting large boxes and trash bags.
He has now been charged with murder, manslaughter, and weapon possession.
Police descended on the apartment Tuesday following reports from concerned neighbors over shots heard within the building.
They reportedly told police making the wellness check that they subsequently saw a stranger coming and going from the apartment with cleaning supplies.
Fears were also sparked by the alleged pleading from the victim, who was heard screaming, ‘Please don’t… I have a family.’
The building’s superintendent told the Post he told officers that he became concerned by the stranger’s presence, particularly as they were not the tenant that he knew.
He claimed that the suspect carried a blue bin, seen in surveillance footage, into the apartment at around 2am after the shots were heard, but wasn’t seen bringing it back.
‘He brought in the bin … I told them, ‘Why is he bringing in the bin at 2 o’clock in the morning? He’s bringing in a bin so late,’ the super said.
Johnson who works with at-risk youth at the Queens Defenders in New York and is a justice reform advocate
Evidence bags seen piled up outside the crime scene on Thursday, two days after cops made the grisly discovery
‘We tried to see if he took out the bin. He never took out the bin. I told them, ‘Look for a bin.’ And sure enough, it was there.’
In a strange development, the building’s super also claimed he saw the suspect leaving the scene in the victim’s blue Audi, before returning wearing a blonde wig.
They felt that he was trying to disguise himself, saying he was ‘dressing differently, changing his character… that’s not normal, he is hiding something.’
Johnson was seen being perp-walked from the NYPD 44th Precinct on Thursday, where he yelled, ‘I’m innocent!’ to reporters as he was led away in white overalls.
The justice reform activist has been open about his criminal past, as well of that of his father and his son.
On the Prison Writers website, Johnson writes about ‘three generations with a father in prison’ explaining his remorse at not being around to guide his son.
The then 14-year-old was jailed in 2008 for killing a Columbia graduate student, ‘while trying to impress a group of friends’, according to Johnson.
‘To express that I was mentally and emotionally devastated is an understatement,’ he wrote.
‘I was forced to reflect into the part that I played in the whole fiasco as my son’s father. “You should have been there to guide and raise him,” the voice repeated over and over.’