Juanita “Nita” Johnston (The Vicksburg Post/MELANIE DUNCAN)

[03/09/02]The former court reporter found injured on Warren County Judge Gerald Hosemann’s property has asked that the charges against him be dropped.

In a letter written to Hosemann’s attorney Thursday and made public Friday, Juanita “Nita” Johnston says, “I have been very sick, and now I realize that any injuries were not the fault of Judge Hosemann.”

Johnston, 48, was found injured on Hosemann’s Puckett Road property Dec. 6 after last being seen when she was with him on Dec. 4. She spent more than a month recovering in Vicksburg and Jackson hospitals and later identified Hosemann as her attacker in a sworn statement prepared by a Hinds County Sheriff’s Department investigator.

Hosemann was arrested Dec. 28 and charged with felony aggravated assault. He was released on bond Dec. 29, and has maintained his innocence.

“The letter says it, and that’s what I believe,” she said Friday from her home in Glenwood subdivision in her first public comments since the incident.

“Judge Hosemann is not responsible for my injuries. When I was sick and weak and my mind wasn’t functioning, I said some things and believed some things. But since I’ve gotten better, I’ve been able to think, pray and be counseled and I do not believe Jerry could have or would do this to me.”

Hosemann would not comment on Friday’s developments, and his attorney, William Kirksey of Jackson, did not return a phone call for comment.

While Johnston has asked that the charges be dropped, the case against Hosemann remains because it was filed by the state, not by Johnston. It can still be presented to a Hinds County grand jury, which will decide if there is enough evidence to indict Hosemann. If he is indicted, the case will go to trial unless he enters into a plea agreement with the prosecution and it is approved by the court.

The Hinds County Sheriff’s Department and the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office declined comment on the letter, citing a court order issued by Hinds County Judge Bobby DeLaughter ordering officials not to comment on any aspect of the case.

When asked at her home Friday afternoon who could have injured her, Johnston said she didn’t know. “I have nobody in mind,” she said.

“All my family thinks Jerry did it,” she said.

“If he did it, he’s gonna pay the price, but from the bottom of my heart, I don’t believe he did it.”

She said she doesn’t remember what happened during the two days she was missing, only that Hosemann picked her up around 7 p.m. on Dec. 4 and they went to his mobile home at 1190 Puckett Road.

“He picked me up and we argued” for about an hour, she said. Then he left, she said. “I saw him drive away.”

After that, she said she took an antidepressive Xanax and drank, “a lot” of rum. “Then I don’t remember anything else,” she said.

“I have no recollection. He (Hosemann) found me that morning,” two days later. “I remember him saying Nita, Nita.'”

Vicksburg Attorney Travis T. Vance Jr., has said that he was contacted by Johnston’s family to help look for her. Vance said that in the process of the search, he was told by a man who owns property near Hosemann’s on Puckett Road that Hosemann had been seen arguing with Johnston near the place where she was found two days later.

Vance said he called Hosemann and picked him up at his home, at 549 Warriors Trail in Vicksburg, at about 2 a.m. He said they, along with Billy Leist, a local plumber and rancher, drove to the Hinds County property to continue in the search.

Vance said he was not there when Hosemann and Leist found Johnston about 50 feet behind the back door of the mobile home.

Vance said that Leist took Johnston to the hospital.

“They saved my life Billy (Leist) and Travis Vance,” Johnston said Friday.

“Billy was afraid to go on the property for legal reasons,” she said. “Then he asked Travis Vance to help him. He wouldn’t quit,” she said.

When asked if her drinking was a suicide attempt, she said: “No. I was angry, upset and was real frustrated,” but that she did not try to kill herself.

She has been told she was wearing clean clothes when she was found, and remembers wearing a pair of Wrangler jeans and a Mississippi State T-shirt when she left her house with Hosemann.

“I don’t know where those clothes are now,” she said. “I’ve asked, and no one can come up with them.”

Then who injured her? “I’m curious about it, too,” she said. “That’s what I want to know.”

“It comes down to the truth is the truth. And this is the truth,” she said.

“When I first went in (to the hospital), I said he did it and he didn’t do it and he did it and he didn’t do it,” she said. “I don’t remember saying any of it. I believe I said it, but I was under all this medication. I don’t know if I was hallucinating or not.”

When asked if the 50-year-old judge had been violent with her before, she said: “His thing is he would leave. He would never do that.”

Johnston said that since she was injured she has studied the signs of abuse and abusers.

“The phases of an abuser — there are certain phases,” she said she has been told. “After this, they’ll kill somebody.” When asked if there was any correlation between abusive relationships and hers with Hosemann, she said no.

She said she has not talked to Hosemann and would not continue a relationship with him after this. “I can’t imagine it,” she said.

“I worked with him in that courtroom for years,” she said, for 10 of her 21 years as a court reporter. “I was confident in every decision he made.”

Their relationship “was a lot less time than most people think,” she said, estimating that is was less than a year of the time when she worked for him.

She said she doesn’t know if she will pursue the $75,000 civil suit she has filed against Hosemann, which claims he owes her money and the return of furniture and a horse. “I haven’t thought about it yet. I don’t know,” she said.

“I’m going to keep working hard and do better,” she said. “I’m not scared.”

She said a colostomy she underwent during her weeks at ParkView Regional Medical Center was reversed a couple of weeks ago and that is delaying the physical therapy she had been receiving for nerve damage in feet and legs. At least until she returns to the therapy, she said, she uses a walker to get around.

“I have a good attitude, and say I will get the feeling back in my feet,'” she said.

She said she also wants her quiet life back. She has two children, ages 18 and 13.

“I didn’t want us to have this hanging over us all the time,” she said, and is thinking of leaving Vicksburg. “It’s a thought I still have.”