A former U.S. Army private stationed at Fort Belvoir was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Friday for twice abusing his infant daughter, who is now permanently disabled, as well as raping her mother.
Austin Blair Johnson, 35, pled guilty earlier this year to two counts of assault resulting in serious bodily damage and one count of sexual abuse in connection with crimes committed in 2012 and 2013, according to a news release from the United States Attorney’s Office in Alexandria.
The 15-year sentence imposed on Friday will run concurrently with Johnson’s 15-year sentence for injuring his 6-week-old son with his new wife in Montana in 2017.
Fort Belvoir case
According to court filings, on June 24, 2012, Johnson, an active duty soldier living on Fort Belvoir, was monitoring his young daughter, who had been delivered prematurely 15 days before.
“So Johnson picked her up and carried her, but she continued to cry,” the release stated. According to the statement, while holding the baby in front of him with one hand under each of her arms, Johnson “rapidly and forcefully shook” the victim many times before letting go, causing her to flip and land on her head.
Johnson then grabbed up the baby and rushed upstairs to a bedroom, where he awoke his then-wife. According to court documents, Johnson falsely claimed that he had dropped the baby by mistake and had effectively halted her fall with his foot.
According to the announcement, the couple rushed the baby to the Fort Belvoir Community Hospital ER, where she was diagnosed with a fever, bruising on her head and shoulder, and blood pouring out of her mouth.
A CT scan performed there revealed that the baby’s skull had been cracked. She was eventually moved to Walter Reed Medical Center’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, where she was diagnosed with extensive injuries and spent the following ten days in the hospital.
The baby was again left in Johnson’s care while his wife was away on the day she was discharged, and he “rapidly and forcefully shook” her before handing her off, according to the release. The youngster was just 26 days old at the time.
The following morning, the infant’s mother took her to Fort Belvoir Community Hospital for a follow-up consultation with a pediatrician, where the baby began suffering convulsions and was sent to the emergency room.
She was eventually moved to the PICU at Children’s National Medical Center, where physicians detected various ailments, including a second skull fracture, as well as serious brain damage, according to the announcement.
When she was discharged on July 20, 2012, the infant was placed in the custody of Child Protective Services, where she resided for around 14 months until being restored to Johnson and her mother.
Two days later, shortly after her third birthday, Emma had a hemispherectomy, “during which the entire left side of her brain was removed to control her irrepressible seizures,” according to the news release.
According to prosecutors, the girl is now legally blind, nonverbal, and paralyzed on her right side. She has cognitive abilities comparable to those of a mature infant.
As part of his sentence, Johnson was forced to pay almost $1.1 million in reparations.
In addition to the assaults on the baby, Johnson was convicted of sexually assaulting the baby’s mother at their Fort Belvoir residence in 2013.
“After she refused Johnson’s requests to be intimate with her, Johnson proceeded against her will.”[The victim] protested and attempted to hit Johnson to make him stop, which he eventually did,” the release stated.
Johnson was never court-martialed or charged criminally for the assaults.
Montana case
Johnson was living in Montana with his new wife and 6-week-old boy when she went upstairs to put on jeans and asked Johnson to keep the baby for a few minutes, according to a Stars and Stripes piece.
She returned downstairs to find the infant limp and unresponsive. He, too, suffered lasting brain damage as a result of intense shaking.
Johnson was promptly apprehended and punished for the offense on March 1, 2018.
The boy’s mother told investigators she was unaware of Johnson’s previous maltreatment of his first child.
It was unclear Friday if the military ever investigated Johnson or why it took more than a decade for federal prosecutors to take up his case. Johnson was indicted in July 2024 and pleaded guilty in May to assaulting his wife and daughter.
The Army Criminal Investigative Division did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
“Military medical protocol requires hospital workers to notify criminal investigators and others if they even suspect child abuse,” Stars and Stripes wrote. “It’s unclear whether that happened but what is known is that the Army never court-martialed Johnson. It took nearly 13 years for Johnson’s previous abuse to catch up with him.”
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