U.S. District Judge Frederic Block of the Eastern District of New York and Walter Johnson have both evolved in the nearly three decades since they first met in Block's courtroom.

Johnson—known on the streets as "King Tut"—was a serial offender, with a record that included 13 arrests on charges that included murder and brazen acts of armed robbery—such as a 1982 stickup of 300 Jehovah's Witnesses in his mother's church, the New York Daily News reported in 1996.