JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — One night in September 2017, Dallas, Texas-area registered nurse Armeshia Johnson’s phone started blowing up.
It was midnight. It was the Sheriff of Clay County.
“He sent a text message to me saying, ‘Hey, it's Darryl. Put your big girl panties on. We need to talk,’” Johnson said.
Johnson didn’t know how Darryl Daniels got her number, but she knew his name. She knew he was sleeping with her boyfriend’s ex-wife, Cierra Smith.
The texts became part of a year-long Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation, some of which was made public Saturday. According to that report and Johnson’s account to First Coast News, the now-suspended sheriff sent her multiple suggestive text messages, seeking to meet her in Dallas. At one point, he sent her a text salutation “hey sexy booty.” When she asked what he meant, the report says, he responded with a picture of her, which she believes Cierra Smith obtained by accessing her ex-husbands’ iCloud.
“I can recognize my body, so I knew it was me,” she said.
The FDLE report says Daniels used privileged law enforcement databases, in violation of state law, to search for Johnson’s personal information. When asked about it, FDLE says Daniels lied.
The text messages Johnson gave FDLE became part of a portrait of a sheriff the agency says transgressed in various ways, including in both personal and professional conduct.
He was arrested Thursday on four criminal charges related to his affair with Smith and attempts to cover it up.
Daniels has denied any wrongdoing.
“I'm innocent,” he said in a video published Thursday but removed Saturday from the Clay County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page. He attributed his arrest to “dirty politics.”
Johnson says that based on her experience, Daniels has no place in public office.
“It was scary that he had so much power, and he knew my whereabouts all the time,” she said. “It still is [scary] because of what’s going on and the position he is in. I don’t know how he ever got in office but … it’s disturbing. And I would never want to come into contact with him again.”
GALLERY | Harassing text messages allegedly from ousted Clay County Sheriff to Texas woman
