David Johnson (Wasatch County GOP/Facebook).
A Utah father who is also a county GOP chair "waterboarded" his 16-year-old daughter because her bedroom was not "spotless to his expectations," authorities say.
David Nephi Johnson, 54, stands accused of aggravated child abuse. According to a probable cause arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, the Heber City Police Department received a report about child abuse. The report said the girl "did not feel safe in her home and expressed fear for her life."
Deputies interviewed the girl, who said a week or so earlier her father, Johnson, had "waterboarded her." She became "visibly emotional and began crying." The girl stated when she came home from hanging out with friends, her father was upset because she "didn't completely clean her room, and she went out without having it to be spotless to his expectations."
Johnson allegedly grabbed his daughter by the back of the neck and pulled her to the bathroom where the sink was filling with water. He then dunked her head underwater before bringing her out, splashing her face with water and dunking her head again. She wasn't sure how long the incident lasted but estimated she couldn't breathe for up to 30 seconds. The girl stated she felt like she was drowning, cops wrote.
The father then ordered her to clean her room. Investigators asked how she felt after the incident.
"I kind of felt sick afterwards," she told investigators. "Like I couldn't breathe. So it made my stomach feel a little sick."
The victim said Johnson had done the same thing to her now-8-year-old brother a few years ago. She also said Johnson backhanded her in the stomach "because she wasn't compliant to do something."
"He made fun of me for crying," she said.
She went on to say she does not feel safe when her father is home because she thinks something violent may occur.
"When I go to bed, I feel like I can't sleep because I don't feel safe," she told cops.
Authorities removed the girl from the home and placed her with an adult sibling while the two younger kids remain in the care of Johnson and his wife. Cops believe the abuse has been "ongoing" throughout the children's lives but they were "too fearful to report it." Johnson "poses a substantial threat to the two younger children," cops said.
Johnson is the chair of the Wasatch County Republican Party. The vice president will take over the organization as the legal process plays out, the Wasatch County GOP said in a statement.
"The safety and well-being of children are of paramount importance to our party and our community," the statement also said. "We are deeply troubled by the nature of the allegations brought forward by the Heber City Police Department."