A TMZ report on Wednesday said that former Jets running back Chris Johnson has been accused of paying someone to allegedly kill two people in 2016.
Johnson hasn’t been arrested or charged with any crimes related to these allegations, and he tweeted “False news!!!!!” soon after the story came out. One of Johnson’s representatives also told TMZ that “there’s no validity to any of these accusations.”
False news!!!!!
— Chris Johnson (@ChrisJohnson28) April 9, 2020
The report alleges that Johnson paid Dominic Bolden, a suspected Florida gang member, with money and a narcotics supply connection after he shot and killed two men in 2016. The men killed were believed to be responsible for a drive-by shooting in Orlando, Florida on March 8, 2015, that killed Johnson’s friend, Dreekius Johnson, and left Johnson and another friend wounded.
Police believe the 2015 shooting was a “gang-related murder attempt” on Johnson, according to court documents obtained by TMZ, and that the two murders in 2016 were allegedly carried out by Bolden as retribution. In return, police say Johnson helped Bolden become the leader of a large drug trafficking organization in Florida.
The 2015 shooting occurred less than a month after the Jets released Johnson following a lone season in New York in 2014. Johnson, who suffered a shoulder injury during the shooting, recovered and played three more seasons for the Cardinals before officially retiring as a member of the Titans in 2019.
Johnson, who said this week that he regretted joining the Jets, holds the record for the most scrimmage yards in a single season with 2,509 after breaking Marshall Faulk’s total in 2009.