Ex-School Board President Indicted In Alleged $1.3 Million Kickback Over $2.7 Million COVID-Funded Air Purifier Deal

A federal grand jury in Chicago has indicted Annette Johnson, the former president of the East Aurora School District 131 Board of Education, on charges that she entered the district into a $2.7 million air purifier purchase in 2021 in exchange for a $1.3 million payment. Johnson, 63, of Aurora, faces two counts of honest services mail fraud and one count of honest services wire fraud, each punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois said. She remains a member of the board.

Prosecutors say that Johnson, then board president, voted for the purchase, and that the district paid for the purifiers with COVID-era federal grant money. Unbeknownst to the other board members, they say, Johnson and the vendor had agreed that the vendor would pay more than $1 million of the sale proceeds to a company owned by her boyfriend, where she served as chief financial officer.

Within days of a board vote in which Johnson participated and approved payment, prosecutors say, the vendor mailed a $1.3 million check labeled “commission” to that company. Later, she allegedly pushed the board to approve a $201,077 payment to the vendor in 2023 for an “extended warranty” on the purifiers. The US Attorney’s office does not name the vendor nor the company in the complaint, and Johnson was the only person indicted.

The indictment also accuses Johnson of failing to list $7,500 paid to her in 2021 by a company involved in the deal on her statement of economic interests. Johnson said in a statement Monday that she recognizes the gravity of the allegations. “I maintain my innocence of the criminal charges brought against me, and I intend to vigorously defend myself through the judicial process,” she said, according to the Sun-Times.

Aurora Mayor John Laesch told the Sun-Times that a whistleblower approached him in 2024 and that district records show eight companies with purported ties to Johnson received $43.1 million from the district between 2018 and 2023, which he says he gave to prosecutors. He has called on her to resign, the paper reported. The $43.1 million figure is Laesch’s claim, not an allegation in the indictment.

The same report says Johnson’s economic-interest statements were blank from 2012 to 2024 and that she first listed a company, DJ Payne Corporation, in 2025. A 2024 challenge to her candidacy over the filings was dismissed after the board ruled it lacked authority to review them.

The district said Johnson, like any defendant, is entitled to a presumption of innocence. Officials told the Sun-Times it is working with investigators. An indictment is not evidence of guilt, and Johnson is presumed innocent. Her term on the board runs through April 2029, according to the district’s website, and the Sun-Times reports she is due in court Nov. 9.