Melvin Johnson. (Courtesy photo)

A Lithonia attorney disbarred by the Supreme Court of Georgia Monday has had a career marred by controversy, including his ouster from a judgeship and an international indictment.

The state high court disbarred Melvin T. Johnson of the Action Johnson Firm based on "serious misconduct" in five client matters and multiple violations of the State Bar of Georgia's ethics rules. The high court also said Johnson "has shown contempt for the disciplinary process" by refusing to respond to bar investigators' requests for information or to their motions, including a move to sanction him. 

In its disbarment order, the high court said Johnson never offered any explanation for not responding.

"The only filing Johnson made … was a meritless motion to recuse the special master, which the special master properly denied because the motion failed to articulate a basis for disqualification or recusal," the unsigned opinion said.

On Tuesday, Johnson called his disbarment "a grave and blatant injustice" and denied the allegations that cost him his bar license.

" I am an African American male who has been quite vocal and political and I have my suspicions of what's really transpiring," he said in a written statement to The Daily Report.

Six years ago, the state Judicial Qualifications Commission removed Johnson as Lithonia's chief municipal court judge for repeatedly failing to complete the mandatory educational training for judges required by state law. The city terminated Johnson's contract after the JQC voted unanimously on Jan. 9, 2014, to remove him and barred him from performing any further judicial duties.

When Johnson was removed from the Lithonia bench, the Liberian government in Africa was seeking to extradite him to face charges of economic sabotage, theft and conspiracy in connection with his work as the legal adviser to the Liberia Airport Authority in Monrovia, Liberia.

Johnson and the airport's former managing director, Ellen Corkrum, were indicted in Liberia in August 2013 and charged with defrauding the Liberian government through the unauthorized transfer of airport funds to consulting firms for services that were never rendered. Information Minister Lewis Brown at the time called the indictment an example of the Liberian government's "unwavering fight against corruption."

The duo told the Daily Report in 2014 that they were smuggled out of the west African country in February 2013, six months before they were indicted. They said they had been warned by the country's police director that their detention was imminent and their lives could be in danger if they were taken into custody.

According to Liberian newspaper Front Page Africa, Liberian Solicitor General Syrennius Cephas dismissed the charges against Corkrum in December. Last month, Corkrum returned to Liberia, where she was met by a huge crowd at the airport she managed until she was forced to flee the country in 2013.

But, according to the newspaper, the indictment against Johnson was never dismissed. Johnson said Tuesday he was informed last December by a Liberian court clerk that the indictment against him was going to be dismissed. He said that, although he has not received official notice, he assumes the charges were dropped at the same time as Corkrum's.

Johnson was previously suspended by the Supreme Court in 2015 and 2017, according to his public disciplinary history. He was reinstated both times after belatedly responding to notice by the bar that it was investigating unspecified complaints against him.

Johnson and Corkrum were both born in Liberia. Johnson said he was a naturalized U.S. citizen who immigrated with his mother to the U.S. when he was 13. Johnson was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 2001 after earning his law degree in 2000 at Georgia State University. Johnson said he served as Lithonia's chief municipal court judge, a part-time post, for about seven years before he was ousted. 

Johnson said he called his firm the Action Johnson Firm, because his nickname in law school was "Action Johnson," a play on the 1988 movie, "Action Jackson."

Like Johnson, Corkrum was a Liberian national who emigrated to the U.S. as a teenager and subsequently became a U.S. citizen.