Crime Didn’t Pay, But Security Does for Ex-Con

Sit Ray Johnson down and he’ll tell you right off, without even a hint of embarrassment, about how he got ripped off for $300 on his custom-made Brazilian Python boots.

“You know why they cost me the extra $300?” he says as he glances down at his $600 pair of snake-covered boots. “Because there is no such thing as a Brazilian Python.”

But the thought of it all still hardens the corners of Johnson’s mouth. The con was conned.

One would expect that Johnson, otherwise known as Raymond Deforest Johnson to the California prison system, could at least muster a little respect for that Dallas bootmaker. But instead--if it wasn’t for fear of damaging those precious boots--he’d just as soon kick himself where it hurts.

Johnson, after all, should know better. After spending more than 25 years in prison, he’s written the book--two of them actually--on crime.

And he was in Santa Ana on Sunday to tell residents of the Wilshire Square neighborhood that they too should know better, that the best way to thwart crime is by prevention and precaution.

“If you make it a little more difficult, believe me, they will go somewhere else, maybe Visalia or Bakersfield,” Johnson told about 40 people seated on folding chairs on neighbor Marc LaFont’s front lawn.

After serving hard time for everything from car theft to burglary to armed robbery, Johnson, 61, now travels around the country making a very comfortable living marketing his criminal expertise.

Just how comfortable, he says, is “hard to estimate,” what with all the speeches, conventions and proceeds from “Dangerous Company,” the made-for-TV movie about his life that is now in reruns. In addition to his books, he has produced a home video on security tips and claims to have appeared on about 4,000 television shows, including “Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show” and the “Today Show.”

In the meantime, Johnson consults and represents and appears.

On Sunday, he appeared courtesy of Schlage Lock Co., one of several concerns with which he is associated, to speak at Wilshire Square’s special neighborhood watch meeting.

“You have to consider the perspective of the criminal,” Johnson says. “When people talk about crime prevention, they leave the criminal out of the equation. I’ve tried to bring that perspective.”

Need an old-time safecracker? Johnson says he’s providing one for a Hollywood film producer.

“‘I talk to the guys all the time,” he says. “They’re all retired now, but you never really know.”

Johnson has lots of those kinds of stories, about life inside the pen and about how a life of crime ain’t what it used to be.

“In my time, we served sort of apprenticeships,” he says. “They would tell you that you don’t mess with no cops and that you don’t hurt people. Yeah, now, I think it’s a lot different. But look at society, it’s younger, more aggressive. There are things like TV. It’s a whole new world.”

Before he left prison in 1968, Johnson says, he managed to get a high school diploma. He hopes that “one of these days somebody will lay an honorary (college) degree on me.”

He and his wife, JoAnna--he’d rather not say just how many times he’s been married--live with their dog, Kung Fuette, in a bus parked most of the time in Del Mar. The reason, he says, is because he relishes the freedom that only the turn of the ignition can give him.

And as for any brushes with crime lately, JoAnna Johnson, 44, recalls the time that somebody tried to break into the couple’s bus, only to be foiled by a security system that her husband had rigged to stereo speakers in nearby trees.

“When anyone tries to get in, it triggers this tape with Ray’s voice saying all sorts of horrible things about the thief’s mother,” she says. “You should’ve seen that guy. If he was in the last Olympics, he would’ve won.”