It's over.
Sacramento will not lose millions in federal stimulus dollars now that Mayor Kevin Johnson has been removed from a federal suspension list.
Announced Thursday by acting U.S. Attorney Lawrence G. Brown, this was a reasonable conclusion to an unreasonable episode. It closes a drama that began 13 months ago when Johnson declared for mayor.
Within hours, then-Mayor Heather Fargo was making erroneous accusations against him. Soon allegations surfaced that Johnson had an inappropriate relationship years earlier with a teenage girl in Phoenix – where he was an All-Star point guard with the Phoenix Suns. Then came allegations that he groped a teenage girl at one of his schools in Sacramento.
And then, the feds went after his nonprofit.
Despite all this, Johnson won a landslide victory in November's general election.
Why? Perhaps because Sacramento came to the same conclusion about this investigation as Brown: Johnson was disorganized but not fraudulent.
To read the complete column, visit www.sacbee.com.
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