An ex-convict who is friends with District Attorney Alvin Bragg and appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast last month has been charged with murder after a severed head was found in a Bronx apartment.
Justice reform advocate Sheldon Johnson, 48, spoke on the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast on February 1 about his journey to “turn his life around” after being imprisoned for 50 years for two violent robberies.
He entertained Rogan’s audience with stories 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 that I’m going to try to do something good, if all else fails I can do something bad again,” he said at the time.
Just a month after the episode aired, Johnson was charged in connection with a dismembered body found in a skip and a head hidden in a freezer belonging to victim Colin Small, 44.
Sheldon Johnson, 48, has been charged with murder after a severed head was found in a Bronx apartment.
The justice reform advocate appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast on February 1 to talk about how he changed his life. He was arrested weeks later
Johnson, who works with at-risk youth at Queens Defenders in New York, joined Rogan to discuss his advocacy for justice reform.
During the conversation, he admitted to dealing drugs and robbing those who could not pay their debts, actions for which a judge reportedly called him “a menace to society.”
He described how he robbed a debtor and his girlfriend in the 1990s with the help of a gang of accomplices, one of whom pistol-whipped the victim, leaving her with a head wound.
Johnson also admitted that he “manhandled” a second robbery victim, although he insisted that the man was not physically harmed. Johnson received consecutive 25-year sentences for the crimes.
While in prison, the convicted felon said he smoked marijuana and drank “jail liquor.”
‘I was in a gang, I was at the top of the food chain. “I had my own nation under my command, I wasn’t just some random gang member,” Johnson told Rogan.
But he says periods 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, reevaluating and thinking, ‘What the fuck are you doing?'” Johnson explained.
“I remember thinking, ‘What are you going to do? Can you live the next 48 years like this?’ I said I couldn’t do it.’
Johnson regaled Rogan with stories 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 at the apartment building, possibly as a disguise.
Johnson was seen carrying a large number of bags to and from the apartment, and the building’s superintendent speculated that he was “hiding something,” officials said.
Johnson said it was thinking about his wife and son growing up hearing stories about his “notoriety” that drove him even more.
“When I came out (of isolation) I made the decision to leave and I didn’t care about the consequences,” Johnson explained.
Johnson added that the gang was happy for him to step back because he was causing them problems due to his strict adherence to the “rules of the street.”
‘I was what is called an authoritarian, I was a man of rules. “I like rules, I like structures, I like things to be a certain way,” he told Rogan.
‘This begins my journey. I went to school and got my GED.’
The uplifting story is a far cry from the narrative painted by police after their gruesome discovery of Small’s remains this week.
Neighbors allegedly told investigators they heard a victim pleading for his life before two gunshots came from the apartment, sources told the New York Post.
Neighbors claimed to have heard a victim screaming for help through the walls, pleading with the alleged killer: “Please no… I have a family.”
Johnson, photographed being harassed by a criminal from the NYPD’s 44th Precinct on Thursday, where he shouted, “I’m innocent!” to journalists while they took him away in a white jumpsuit
Johnson is a well-known criminal justice activist in New York City.
Before the gruesome discovery, Johnson was seen in chilling surveillance footage appearing to disguise himself in a blonde wig and carrying large boxes and bags of trash.
He has now been charged with murder, manslaughter and possession of a weapon.
Police responded to the apartment Tuesday following reports from concerned neighbors about gunshots heard inside the building.
They reportedly told police conducting the welfare check that they subsequently saw a stranger entering and leaving the apartment with cleaning supplies.
Fears were also sparked by the alleged pleas of the victim, who was heard shouting: ‘Please no… I have a family.’
The building’s superintendent told the Post that he told officers he was concerned about the stranger’s presence, particularly because they were not tenants he knew.
He claimed the suspect brought a blue container, seen on surveillance footage, to the apartment around 2 a.m. after gunshots were heard, but was not seen bringing it back.
‘He brought the garbage… I told them: ‘Why do you bring the garbage at 2 in the morning? “He’s bringing the trash too late,” the superintendent said.
Johnson, who works with at-risk youth at Queens Defenders in New York and is an advocate for justice reform.
Bags of evidence piled up outside the crime scene on Thursday, two days after police made the gruesome discovery.
‘We tried to see if he took out the trash. She never took out the trash can. I told them: ‘Look for a container.’ And sure enough, she was there.
In a strange development, the building superintendent also claimed he saw the suspect leave the scene in the victim’s blue Audi, before returning wearing a blonde wig.
They felt he was trying to disguise himself, saying he was “dressing differently, changing character… that’s not normal, he’s hiding something.”
Johnson was seen being harassed by a criminal from the NYPD’s 44th Precinct on Thursday, where he shouted, ‘I’m innocent!’ to journalists as he was led away dressed in a white jumpsuit.
The judicial reform activist has been open about his criminal past, as well as that of his father and son.
On the Prison Writers website, Johnson writes about “three generations with a father in prison” and explains his regret at not being there to guide his son.
The 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 on the role I played in the whole fiasco as the father of my son. “You should have been there to guide him and raise him,” the voice repeated over and over.