Go. Drop here.
[narrator] Kris Johnson always knew
she wanted to serve her country,
and meet the right partner to serve beside.
[Kris] You know, he was the epitome of duty,
honor, country,
somebody you can trust.
Kris and Jim were gonna have an absolutely
wonderful life together.
[narrator] What if the person you believed in most
betrayed you?
You know, my gut kept saying something was off.
[narrator] What if they'd betrayed everybody?
[Kris] He could do whatever the hell he wanted.
[Paul] We knew that, you know,
he's possibly facing the court-martial.
[narrator] Taking a stand could cost everything.
[Frank] She was put in a real terrible situation
and had to make some hard choices.
[Kris] I just feared everything.
I couldn't believe that Col. Johnson would do this.
[Kris] Because I'm the one that blew the whistle.
[Frank] That's when everything started to blow up, actually.
[Kris] I fled. I didn't know at that point
what he was capable of.
[dramatic music playing]
[Kris] So the young me, well,
as a kid, I was a tomboy.
I was always a competitive athlete.
In my teen years, I was in beauty pageants,
and I was Miss New York Teenager.
The Army always attracted me.
And then in college, I decided to join Army ROTC.
[narrator] Kris is thriving in college.
There's only one drawback.
[Kris] Mount Saint Mary was almost...
At that time, almost all women.
[narrator] Just nine miles south on the banks
of the Hudson River is another college.
This one, almost all men.
[David] West Point United States Military Academy
is the place where serious cadets go
to become career or professional officers.
[narrator] On Halloween night in 1985,
prisoner girlfriends make an impromptu visit.
[Kris] We went, we're trick or treating
in the barracks at West Point.
You know, we weren't supposed to be there.
But here we were. And Jim was the cadet company commander.
And I had dressed up as a baby.
And so I had a baby bottle and a blanket.
Jim was sitting at his desk studying,
trying to ignore what was going on around him.
You could tell he was so uncomfortable
having this group of giggling girls
and they're all dressed up in goofy costumes.
I remember going over and just talking to him.
I was like, "Wow, this is really...
This guy, you know,
this guy really has his stuff together."
And I made chocolate chip cookies.
And Jim made a point of returning the tin to me
and he said, "You know, they were the best
chocolate chip cookies I ever had."
And they say, you know,
the way to a man's heart is through his stomach,
I guess that might have been true a little bit, so.
We met the beginning of my junior year,
beginning his senior year,
and by the end of the year,
you know, we just both knew that this is somebody
we wanna spend the rest of our lives with.
You know, he was the epitome of duty, honor, country.
That's something you wanna be around.
I mean, that's the kind of person you wanna trust
and build a life with,
somebody you can trust.
His father was a general
and he was stationed in the Pentagon,
Lt. Gen. James Houston Johnson.
They were known sort of as Fort Bragg Airborne royalty.
[narrator] After graduation,
Jim continues Officers training,
while Kris goes to ROTC Airborne School.
[Kris] At that time, not a lot of women
went through Airborne School,
and I was the only woman in my chalk.
At the final graduation jump,
he pinned my wings on,
and the wings he gave me
were the ones his father pinned on to him
when he graduated from Airborne School.
You know, I just thought that that was really special.
The day after that, it was a weekend.
And I remember him saying,
"I'm gonna fix us a nice breakfast."
The table was set for breakfast
and there was a bouquet of a dozen roses.
And he got down on one knee
and put the ring on me and asked me to marry him.
So it was very romantic and very sweet.
We got married on May 17th, 1987.
I remember a friend saying,
"I've never seen someone walk down the aisle so confident.
Just felt so right."
When they come out of the church,
they have the saber bearers to form an arch.
[Kris] Two people in the front put the sabers down in cross
and say, you know, "You can only pass with a kiss."
So, of course, the bride and groom have to kiss
in front of everybody.
[dramatic music playing]
[Cathy] Right from the beginning,
Kris understood that, you know,
Jim would be in command,
but Kris would be the commander's wife.
Kris embraced that.
[narrator] Kris puts her own military career on hold,
and she and Jim raised two children,
while moving from base to base.
[Kris] I got involved in the community,
you know, learned the skill of being an Army wife
and, um, supported the career.
[Frank] Army team couples, as what we would call them,
when they work well together,
there's a halo effect.
[Kris] We were a really awesome team,
and they were building him to take on more
advanced senior leadership roles.
[man] Truly a great day to be here at Fort Benning,
the Home of the Infantry.
[Kris] Yeah. We had a happy marriage and a happy family.
We had a great life.
[narrator] Jim's career is on the rise
at a time when the U.S. Military
needs more good leaders.
On my orders, the United States Military
has begun strikes
against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps,
and military installations of the Taliban regime
in Afghanistan.
He deployed to Afghanistan with the 82nd.
They were a rapid deployment force.
Jim got promoted to Lieutenant Colonel
during that time.
He came home the following year in 2003.
He was home for about three months,
but he'd been selected to command a battalion,
the 101st first Airborne Division in Iraq.
This will be a campaign unlike any other in history.
A campaign characterized by shock, by surprise,
and by the implication of overwhelming force.
[Kris] The children and I
moved to Fort Campbell, Kentucky by ourselves
because he's already left to go to Iraq.
And in September 2005,
he deployed again as a Battalion Commander.
And I had concerns that he would be burnt out.
[narrator] After being apart for almost four years,
Jim finally returns home.
It should be a happy reunion, but something's not right.
He's cold and distant,
even with his own children.
[Kris] Jim changed during that deployment,
walking back from the soccer fields
for one of our children's games,
you know. He would just, like, divert off,
and come back, and show up 30 minutes later.
Nothing I did was pleasing him.
Nothing I did was good enough.
All of a sudden, he's not initiating sex at all.
This is when the suspicion starts coming up.
Something's not right, you know.
He's withdrawing from me,
you know, intimacy is on a decline.
You know, what is up?
[narrator] But then, they received
the best possible news.
[Frank] Jim was selected to command
the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Italy,
probably the most sought-after
infantry brigade command in the United States Army.
[Kris] We were very excited about it
because we were all moving to Europe as a family.
[narrator] In the summer of 2008,
the family relocates to an idyllic residence in Vicenza.
We're finally all together in Europe,
and it just didn't feel right.
He started getting angry,
and I started feeling like I was walking on eggshells
around him.
I'll never forget one day, too, during that time,
he just looked at me and said,
"Is this all there is?"
Here, we've worked so hard as a team to get to this,
and it was hurtful.
[narrator] By the end of the year,
the relationship is even more strained.
Jim was always engaged with our family.
We would do silly things like watch American Idol,
and all vote together,
and he just didn't wanna do those things.
December 2008 was one of the most
miserable Christmases I've ever had. Yeah.
So many things weren't making sense.
He was insistent that we were going to do
a New Year's Eve party.
I was worn out, and thought,
"Let's just enjoy the Holiday as a family.
We know you're gonna deploy again next year."
He, um, said, "Oh, by the way, you know,
we're gonna have this Iraqi family join us
for this New Year's Eve weekend.
And they were going to stay in the house with us."
[narrator] Jim explains that he became acquainted
with the Al-Atar family during his two tours in Iraq.
[Kris] And then he said,
"There are interpreters. You understand that, right?"
There's multiple interpreters at every level
inside of a brigade operation.
They are a part of that same close net-network
for whom you would do almost anything.
[Kris] I found out he's gonna drive to the Netherlands
and pick up this family, six hours up, six hours back.
And he doesn't have a vehicle big enough to fit them.
So, he is gonna take a vehicle, a van,
out of the motor pool, the brigade motor pool,
a government-owned vehicle.
And he's going to use it for personal reasons.
That is a huge no-no.
You don't do that.
He'll never be the kind of guy that would do that.
You know, he didn't lie, cheat, or steal.
You know, my gut kept saying something was off,
and I couldn't put my finger on it.
[narrator] Jim arrives home with his friends
and presents Alladin Al-Atar,
his wife,
and their 24-year-old daughter, Haveen.
[Kris] I remember the father had a heavy mustache.
The mother was kind of your frumpy housewife,
and their daughter, she had long, dark hair,
wore very dark makeup,
and she had a young child.
[narrator] For the first few moments,
it seems like this could be a happy New Year's weekend
after all.
Until Jim does something subtle,
something only Kris, his wife of 20 years,
would find shocking.
He scooped down and picked up the 14-month-old,
and the child didn't flinch.
Jim wasn't somebody that held other people's children.
Never scooped up a friend's child.
It was woman's intuition.
And right then and there,
I realized that there's something about this family
that's just not right.
There was something going on here.
[narrator] Kris is only about to discover
the reason for her husband's distance.
In a very, very tiny community locked inside of Italy,
there is a Peyton Place of the highest order.
There's no secrets.
[Cathy] Jim had gone against everything
that the Army and West Point had taught him.
He's doing way worse.
He's self-destructing.
And little did I know
it was just the very beginning.
[Frank] He destroyed his family,
destroyed his name.
He lost everything.
[narrator] Col. Jim Johnson is acting completely
out of character at the family's New Year's dinner,
especially with his interpreter's
24-year-old daughter, Haveen.
I remember not being able to eat.
Everything about this is off.
They had their own little
private corner down in the end of the table.
Haveen had a digital camera in her hands
and Jim was messing with it,
and it was the same camera
I had been given for Christmas.
He'd given her one, too, exact thing.
I really didn't know how to process it.
You're just ingesting it,
and trying to take the next breath.
Keep your composure.
Don't fall apart in front of these people.
That night, you know, I asked him if, you know,
he was having an affair with her.
And he said, "No.
Her family would kill her or disown her. Not...
I don't feel that way about her."
And then I asked him, "Well, have you kissed her?"
And he said, "Yes, but not passionately."
What the hell does that mean?
[narrator] That weekend, Jim tells Kris
he wants to take the Al-Atars shopping at the Army PX.
[Kris] One of my children said, "Oh, yeah,
we had to wait for Haveen to make her grand entrance
down the stairs because she...
We were all sitting around just waiting for her.
And she was upstairs doing I don't know what.
Haveen is gonna get shoes for the baby.
And at one point, Jim's like,
"Oh, I'm gonna go over here.
You take Haveen up to the register
and pay for what she wants."
So, she's got these shoes.
And on the way to the register,
she finds a cute little sweater for herself.
She picks out shampoo and other things for herself,
just loading up on whatever product she's looking for.
And I'm, like, floored.
You know, the mother,
she would go outside and smoke cigarettes.
During that whole weekend, she would go out
and smoke a cigarette
and leave the butt on the ground.
Who does that?
I end up cleaning 12 cigarette butts
off by the ground when they left.
[narrator] When Jim makes the overnight trip
to take the Al-Atars back to the Netherlands,
Kris is left alone to wonder how much trouble
her relationship is in.
But I didn't wanna believe that he was having
sex with her.
I still didn't wanna believe it.
I went into his office.
When I opened the top drawer and I saw a notepad,
he had written three columns,
"Divorce now, divorce in six months,
divorce a year from now."
And he had plotted out which would be most
advantageous to him.
I just remember when I found that note
feeling like the blood had drained from my face.
You know, that weekend I not only cooked, but I ran...
I remember running a little laundry for them.
[chuckles] I did.
My husband's mistress' laundry.
Jim got home and I said,
"I found a note in your desk today."
And I said, "Are you divorcing me?"
And he looked at me shocked and he said,
"Well, I'm sorry you saw that."
Not no... And then he said, "Well, is that what you want?"
I said, "No, I don't want a divorce.
I want us to work things out."
When you have an affair in the military,
if it's discovered,
it normally doesn't turn out well for you and your career,
which is why there's always denial,
which is why you double down on denial.
[narrator] Jim denies the affair,
but Kris remains dubious.
[Kris] I knew that the child,
Haveen's daughter, could not have been Jim's.
He had a vasectomy in June 2000.
I think she was born in, like, November, 2007.
It's not his child.
I kept looking and I don't know
if I was still trying to look for something
to prove myself wrong or just prove myself right.
Well, I finally did.
He has a black book and in the back
he had all these secret email accounts
and that opened up, at that point,
three years of emails
that he had been communicating with Haveen.
And some of them were so juvenile,
like reading them were embarrassing.
It was like he was a teenager,
a horny teenager, literally.
One of the emails she wrote to him
was like, "I'm your little shayton."
That means devil in Arabic
that, you know, "I'm your little shayton.
I'm gonna be making trouble all your life.
Kissy, kissy."
As the emails progressed between them,
I started realizing certain things he was saying
with her that corresponded with events in our life,
like him taking money out
of one of our personal accounts.
He had taken $10,000
and converted it to Euro and gave it to her.
My legs started shaking.
I couldn't stop it.
And I thought, "Screw this, I'm calling him."
Woke him up and screamed in the phone.
"Are you [bleep] her?"
[chuckles]
He can't deny he's having an affair.
And, of course, he said, "You're recording this call.
Someone's listening in."
He wouldn't answer the question.
It then led to me insisting that we go to counseling
to see the Family Life Chaplain in Vicenza
'cause I was not about to give up.
I was not gonna throw the towel in.
I thought I'm gonna fight for my marriage.
Unfortunately, there's a fair amount of adultery
in the army.
Chaplains are there to help preserve marriages.
The chaplain gave us this book
and the book was about adultery.
I don't even remember the name of the book.
I hated it. I just... It just made me so angry.
One page said, "The person having an affair,
it's not your fault."
And he just grasped onto that like,
"Look, it's not all my fault.
It's your fault, too, that I'm doing this."
You know, it allowed Jim to give himself permission
to continue to blame me for his actions,
which is insane.
If you're a psychologist, this is standard transference.
It's transference of blame
to somebody else so that you can feel good about yourself
and you build this case, you actually begin to believe it.
[Kris] Of course now I look back
and he lied even to this chaplain
during our counseling.
Not only did he not stop the affair,
he continued it and got even more deeply involved.
A credit card receipt from his work credit card
came to the... Our mail and I opened it up
and there was charges on there that didn't make sense.
He was using his government credit card
for her void account so they could communicate.
He did not stop at all.
So then I'm starting to walk around with this big deep,
dark secret 'cause if it got...
Word got out that he was having an affair,
his career is over.
You know, the army doesn't tolerate adultery.
And so I had this burden now,
I'm like now what do I do with this?
You know, I had invested everything in him.
You know, our family was invested,
our children had sacrificed for him
to do what his country called him to do.
I believed in it.
Our children believed in it.
Kris has a very strong sense of right and wrong,
very strong morals.
[Kris] Jim was about to go down to combat
with these guys again, and I thought
the disruption of having your commander taken out.
I did not wanna cause a disruption in the brigade.
You know, I knew I had to dig up whatever strength I had to,
like, handle this with as much grace as I could
and to protect Jim,
protect him from himself at this point.
[narrator] Despite the betrayal,
Kris continues to put Jim's needs first,
and so does Jim.
[Kris] Jim called early November,
you know, "How soon can you be ready for a trip?"
I was like, "Well, where am I going?"
And he said, "I've gotten a plane ticket for you
and you're going to leave Italy.
The only way I can fix our marriage
is for you not to be there when I come home.
I want you gone."
I didn't know at that point what he was capable of.
[Frank] He knows how to plan. He knows how to execute.
He knows how to do war gaming action reaction,
counter reaction.
Revenge becomes very, very powerful.
Know that I'm Col. Jim Johnson,
Commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team
stationed in...
[narrator] Kris Johnson's husband
is wielding his powers as an army colonel
to force her from their home in Vicenza, Italy.
in a normal press conference format.
[Kris] He's kicking me out.
Jim had also said on the phone call,
"I'm revoking your command sponsorship,"
which means I'm not allowed to stay in Europe
as a family member.
I'm gone. I can't stay.
It is very unique to see the brigade commander's wife
return unless they choose to go home.
Very, very odd.
I remember shaking.
There was something in the tone of Jim's voice
that scared me.
[narrator] Jim is not only pushing Kris out,
he's demanding she leave their children behind.
I didn't know at that point what he was capable of.
He's the only army brigade commander in all of Italy.
No one questions you.
There was no way Kris would leave her children
in a foreign country and come back to the states
without them.
No way.
[Kris] I decided for my safety and my children's safety
we were just gonna leave.
So, I ran over to the school and withdrew the children
and then I got one-way plane tickets to leave Italy.
I fled.
I felt like I fled Italy.
And I remember landing in JFK,
meeting my parents, getting in the car,
and I just remember looking out the window thinking,
now what?
Now what do I do?
I don't have a job.
I had no money. I have nothing.
Now what?
[narrator] Five days later, Jim tracks Kris down
at her parents' home.
[Kris] Kept trying to call. He was calling my parents,
calling my parents. And finally I just decided,
okay, I'll answer the phone and tell him
stop harassing my mom and dad.
I'm here. Our children are safe.
My children were very angry with him
'cause they knew about the affair.
They met her. I mean, they spent a weekend
with this woman that they knew
their father was involved with.
[narrator] Over the next two months,
the battle over custody intensifies.
[Kris] He had tried two emergency injunctions
out of a court in Florida to get emergency custody.
And there was... Were both denied.
There was no cause for it.
[narrator] In response, Jim initiates an obscure
legal maneuver called the Hague petition.
[Cathy] My understanding of the Hague petition,
he was claiming Kris had kidnapped the child
and taken the child back to the United States
against Jim's wishes, orders, permission.
Jim is desperate for custody.
[Frank] He knows how to plan. He knows how to execute.
He knows how to do war gaming action,
reaction, counter reaction.
Revenge becomes very, very powerful.
[phone ringing]
[narrator] Kris is further stunned when she gets news
from Vicenza.
[Kris] By the end of December,
I got a phone call from my neighbor
and she said, "Kris, there's been a woman,
a young woman with a child seen coming and going
from your quarters in Vicenza."
He had moved his mistress into our house with her kid.
Relationships with foreign nationals
are always scrutinized.
You're not allowed to have a foreign relationship
without reporting that up
through your security clearance.
It is a security issue.
[Kris] He just let her roll right in
and sleep on my pillow and knead off my dishes.
She was just gonna roll in
and take the place of Kris Johnson.
And it was at that point
I realized no one's gonna stop him.
He's blatant about the fact that he's having an affair.
[Cathy] Jim had gone against everything
that the Army and West Point had taught him
beyond the point of no return.
That's when I realized, okay, you know,
I need to... I need to do something.
And I thought, that's it.
I, you know, I've gotta let the commanding general know.
It was a moral decision for me to just sit back
and not say anything.
How do you look yourself in the mirror?
I sat at my parents' computer.
I typed in, like, five pages
and I disclosed the, you know,
email accounts that Jim had,
the email accounts that Haveen had
that I knew she used to communicate with him,
the dates that I knew he had been with her,
the misuse of government resources, the cell phone,
the government credit card,
like all the things I knew about.
[narrator] After receiving Kris' letter,
the army immediately starts
an administrative investigation
known as a 15-6.
[Kris] By February,
the 15-6 then rolled into a criminal investigation.
[narrator] Meanwhile, the battle over
the Hague petition escalates.
Jim's contention was that I was kicked off post
'cause I was a disruption.
He and his father both wrote affidavits
saying that I was this disruption on the army post
and that's why I was kicked off post
and that I was ordered to leave our children behind.
But he was just trying to find anything
to make my life hell.
Jim called once and said, "I'm gonna send US Marshals
to the house and, you know, you're gonna get arrested,"
and that lasted for about two months.
I mean, it was... it was scary
'cause I didn't... Who deals with Hague?
Then being, you know, accused of kidnapping
our children and across international borders
and, you know, it was two months of hell.
It was amazing feeling
when the judge ruled in my favor.
My attorneys cried.
I cried.
I mean, they were so relieved.
Stress will do terrible things to your body.
I started getting sick,
like a pain, abdominal pain.
And found out ultimately that I had a premalignant
tumor the size of a grapefruit
on the tail of my pancreas.
I had surgery December of 2011
and it was a much more complicated surgery
than they had anticipated,
and I ended up in the hospital for a week.
I got a phone call from the hospital
the day after I came home and they said,
"Well, we've just tried putting your claim in
to the military health insurance
and they've denied it. You're not covered.
You owe us a $100,000."
[Cathy] It was devastating.
It's not like she had a lot of money.
[narrator] As a military spouse,
Kris should be fully covered.
I couldn't drive. I was still on meds.
I was still, you know, stitches and, you know,
still kind of a mess.
And so my sister drove me to the ID card office of...
On West Point.
And I, you know, sat down with a woman
and handed my ID card,
and she pulled up the information in the computer
and said "Oh, well, you're divorced."
I said, "No, I'm not." She goes, "Yeah,
on September 23rd you got divorced."
So, they go ahead and shred my ID card.
And I just lose it. I just start crying.
"I'm not divorced."
But they knew immediately something fishy was up.
[narrator] West Point's ID card office
notifies the Army's Criminal Investigation Division.
[Paul] They've had alerted army CID because of all that,
that's when the army decided to do a, uh,
preliminary look to investigate.
[telephone ringing]
[Kris] I get a phone call from Paul Danley.
And he's... Introduces himself
as the lead CID agent investigating my husband.
And he says, "Here's what we found out.
Jim filed divorce registration.
I'm gonna scan a copy to you.
And I want you to look at it, your signatures on it.
Can you tell me if you've ever seen it before?"
[Paul] That's when everything started to blow up actually.
And it appeared that the divorce decree,
or whatever it was called, uh,
looked like it was just a copy of a marriage license
from when he and Kris got married in New York
with some things changed.
Basically, he created his own
certificate of divorce registration.
But he forged my signature,
made up a signature of a clerk in Monroe
and signed that, signed his name.
He filed that with the military.
Again, that's a crime.
He said, "Oh, and by the way, Jim and Haveen got married.
On November 9th, they got married.
[Paul] I couldn't believe that Col. Johnson
would do this.
You know, fake a divorce decree
and then marry Haveen while still married to Kris Johnson.
My husband had committed bigamy.
Bigamy.
Every time I turned around, I thought, "Now, what?"
[Paul] And then all of a sudden, we're getting calls
from Vicenza saying, "Hey, you need to come here."
They found a lot more information than
what was in Kris Johnson's letter.
[narrator] Col. Jim Johnson,
who was once committed to duty, honor, and country,
has broken his oath in a startling way.
[Kris] I mean he committed bigamy.
I remember just saying,
"I can't make this [bleep] up."
[laughs] I just...
One of my children sent their dad an email later.
And all it said was,
"How was the wedding?
Was there cake?"
[narrator] It turns out that Jim has been on the radar
of CID Investigator Paul Danley for some time.
[Paul] The whole thing started with a contract
fraud investigation over in Afghanistan.
The contracting office had alerted army CID
because there was a Colonel,
Col. Johnson, that was raising a ruckus
because his contractor wasn't getting paid.
They were fairly low-level contracts.
This is for cultural support services.
They can't understand why Col. Johnson
was berating that we're not paying this contract
when they had other, you know, bigger issues going on,
water, feeding the troops, et cetera.
And they said it was so bad that, you know,
it raised red flags.
We thought the investigation was done.
And out of the blue, Kris contacted me.
[narrator] Kris provides the missing piece of the puzzle.
The fact that the contractor in question
is Jim's mistress' dad, Alladin Al-Atar.
Now why are you dating the contractor's daughter
when you're paying her father?
That's a big red flag.
So you got an Iraqi man advising on culture
in Afghanistan.
Apples, oranges, you know, just didn't make sense.
[Paul] Alladin Al-Atar was actually living in The Hague
in the Netherlands.
Nothing about Afghanistan.
So, it raised just a lot of questions
about why this contract was even signed.
[narrator] Paul asks Kris to provide
anything else she can.
Emails, credit cards statements, travel records.
[Kris] They start putting the pieces together.
So, then when I said,
"By the way, he was also exchanging bank account
information with Alladin."
They realized that there was way more to it.
He was having, uh, inappropriate relationship
among other things, fraud,
misuse of government resources,
the whole nine yards.
[Paul] Then we discovered that, uh, Col. Johnson
had given a phone to the Al-Atars,
a government phone I should say.
And when the bills came back,
I think it was over $30,000 for a month,
just for one month of, uh, cell phone usage.
[narrator] But there's more.
Investigators going through Jim's computer hard drive
uncover questionable financial deals
worth millions.
They had found, um, that Col. Johnson
had tried to have a nine...
Almost $10,000,000 contract let for, uh, windmills.
The whole contract was spun up as being
a way to get water to troops in remote posts,
that they billed the producer on water.
So, I talked to the company rep for this windmill company.
He explained that they wouldn't work
in Afghanistan.
Someone was trying to push through a contract,
you know, almost $10,000,000
for these windmills that wouldn't work.
You know, why are we doing this?
[narrator] The money trail leads back to Jim
and to Haveen's father.
Alladin Al-Atar had supposedly found these...
Or was working for this, uh, Dutch company
that develop the windmills.
If this contract had been let... Had been signed,
Alladin would have got approximately $500,000
as a finder's fee.
So, that's a big flag, you get the same contractor,
you're dating his daughter.
And, you know, all of a sudden,
he's gonna get a half a million dollars.
[narrator] Kris' information makes it possible
for the army to build a solid case
on Jim's financial misdeeds.
They also find latent proof of Jim's adultery.
[Kris] Jim and Haveen made a sex tape
and he kept it on his government computer.
They found it on his hard drive.
[narrator] The greatest disgrace
is where and when the tryst was recorded.
He was in Iraq and not in Afghanistan with his brigade.
His brigade just went off to war.
He's supposed to be leading his soldiers
and instead he's screwing around with his mistress.
[chuckles]
He's not a leader.
[narrator] Army investigators have learned
all they need to know about Jim Johnson.
They're ready to prosecute.
Jim is arraigned on a total of 27 charges
with a maximum possible sentence of 54 years.
The charges range from adultery, bigamy, fraud,
misuse of government resources,
and, uh, conduct unbecoming of an officer.
[narrator] The army flies Kris to Germany
to attend a trial her email helped trigger
and which could cost Jim and her everything.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Kris] When you're married as long as I was to Jim,
pawn a divorce, you are eligible
for up to half of the service member's military retirement.
But if Jim's colonel behavior
led to him being dismissed or incarcerated,
those benefits would have been taken from him
and so then half of nothing would be nothing for me.
Jim's not gonna be the only one that's gonna be punished.
Kris and the children are gonna be punished as well.
Made my stomach churn.
[narrator] Jim Johnson has not been shut down.
Even in the midst of a court martial,
he's about to show his own family
how destructive he can be.
[Cathy] Jim was going out of his way
to do anything he could
to cause Kris and their children pain.
It was just unbelievable.
I was so hurt. I just...
Blown away. Numb.
I think it's horrible.
I think that's the worst... the worst of it all.
[narrator] On June 12th, 2012,
disgraced army Col. Jim Johnson
gets his day on court
and Kris is there to watch over the proceedings
every step of the way.
[Kris] You know, I remember one time him looking at me
just, you know, if he could kill me with his eyes,
he would have
because I'm the one that blew the whistle.
[narrator] The original list of 27 charges
has come down to two counts of conduct unbecoming
an officer and a gentleman by the time trial starts.
[Kris] He pled guilty to 15 charges.
He had to plead guilty to adultery
because they had a videotape of it.
I testified in the trial,
testified for a couple days at least.
[narrator] The prosecution presents an irrefutable case.
Thanks in part to the evidence
Kris has provided them.
[Paul] Seemed like the panel was, um,
getting close to, you know, not only convicting him,
but, you know, giving him a sentence.
You know, involving some incarceration
or maybe a, you know, dishonorable discharge
from the military.
[narrator] Jim's attorneys now put anyone
willing to testify in defense of Jim on the stand,
including Jim's father.
[Kris] His father said,
"My son is an honest man.
My son is an honorable man.
He's not a...He's not a liar.
My son is not a criminal."
Dude, your son is a criminal.
He just pled guilty to 15 charges
and now you're up on the witness stand saying,
"My son is not a criminal."
Really?
[narrator] Both sides rest their case.
It takes the jury only a few hours
to reach their decision.
Jim Johnson is convicted
on two counts of conduct unbecoming of an officer.
The army pronounces his behavior to be
of a nature to bring discredit
upon the Armed Forces.
What happened to the guy that, you know,
embodied duty on our country?
You know, what happened to the man that, you know,
doesn't lie, cheat, or steal, and/or tolerate those who do?
[narrator] Jim's sentencing hearing is one last chance
to acknowledge the pain he's caused.
But he doesn't do that.
Instead, he uses the opportunity
to plead with the court not to send him to jail
so he can care for his beloved, Haveen.
[Kris] He was talking about, you know,
allowing him to go back and save her
and keep her from being deported.
He also made a comment like,
"Haveen and her daughter are the center of my life."
And one of my children behind me heard that
and just starts sobbing.
You know, our children used to be the center of his life.
His family,
us,
was the center of his life.
He destroyed the relationship with his children.
He chose to do that.
It just, uh... It's so sad.
Five years confinement or pay a $300,000 fine.
That was his sentence.
His father wrote a check for $300,000 and paid the fine.
He could have gotten up to 54 years in prison.
Instead, he walked out of the courtroom as a colonel
with eagle still on his shoulders.
Justice wasn't served.
[Cathy] Jim should have gone to jail for what he did,
but if he did go to jail,
Kris and their children would have been...
It would've been catastrophic for them.
[narrator] Kris does finally divorce Jim Johnson
for real this time.
[Kris] From what I understand,
he's still with Haveen and her daughter.
We have no communication.
Our children are essentially estranged from him.
[narrator] Kris and her kids get half
of Jim's pension and benefits.
She knows not everyone is this lucky.
There's no whistle blower protection for spouses.
So, you tolerate illegal and immoral behavior
where you turn him in,
and you risk losing everything.
And that's what led me into working on some legislation.
[Cathy] Kris amazes me.
She fought for herself
and she fought for her children.
And now she's fighting for other families.
What we ultimately created was called
the Family Serve to Military Justice Reform Act.
And what that would allow is if a service member
commits misconduct, it allows the service
to properly punish the lawbreaker
without financial repercussions on the family.
The benefits that the family
has also earned are protected.
So, that'll be my swan song from the army.
That'll be the last kind of move I do
to help take care of families.
I'm at peace where I am at now
and I hope my story gives other spouses hope.
You know, you can rebuild.
You can have a happy, successful life,
um, after going through something so painful.
You know, it's just nice to know
that someone else has dealt with it
and has gotten through the tunnel
towards the light and life is good again.