Community Activist Gwendolyn Brown-Johnson Busted for Selling Moonshine at N.C. Day Care Center
The Charlotte Observer reported Tuesday that North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement arrested the 57-year-old woman last week at Parkview Community Center in Charlotte, N.C.
Agents say children were in the day care center when they sent in an undercover agent to buy two gallons of an illegal brew.
Brown-Johnson said she was set up by a neighbor who was angry she was cooperating with police on code enforcement, according to the Charlotte Observer.
She says she was just holding a package for a man in exchange for $80 and didn't even know what was in it.
Agents also arrested 82-year-old Ervin Preston Finger and charged him with making the moonshine. Authorities seized more than 80 gallons of moonshine from Finger.
According to the Parkview Community Center Web site, the program was formally set up in 1997 to help "children, many of them were involved with alcohol, drugs and criminal activity ranging from drug sales and prostitution to breaking and entering and other forms of larceny."
Brown-Johnson, who according to her site has three adopted children and numerous leadership awards, told the Charlotte Observer she is worried most about the 20 children her program currently oversees.
"We've had children call us when Daddy has beaten Mommy to a pulp. We have children whose parents sell their food stamps when there's nothing to eat," she said. "I just don't want to get the children involved in any way, shape or form," she told the paper.