Aurora mayor says $43M in city money went to businesses linked to indicted school board member

Aurora Mayor John Laesch is calling for the resignation of Annette Johnson, an East Aurora School District 131 board member who was indicted this week, accused of orchestrating a lucrative kickback scheme.

Laesch said he brought prosecutors evidence of more than $43 million in payments to businesses with purported ties to Johnson.

He previously served on the school board with Johnson, who was the board president and also the chief financial officer of a business at the time of the alleged scheme.

According to a grand jury indictment Tuesday that charges her with four counts of wire fraud, Johnson used her sway as board president to push the district to buy $2.7 million in wearable air purifiers in 2021 in exchange for a $1.3 million payment to the company that Johnson helped lead.

Laesch said the “alleged conduct is completely unacceptable, unethical and violates her oath of office.”

He said a whistleblower approached him in 2024 to report that Johnson purportedly had ties to eight companies. Those companies made $43.1 million from the school district between 2018 and 2023, according to records provided by Laesch.

The mayor said he provided everything he had to federal investigators and the Kane County sheriff's office.

“I look forward to seeing this investigation continue and hope for justice for families of District 131 and the East Aurora community,” he said.

In a written statement, school district officials said: “While the allegations made against Ms. Johnson are incredibly serious and concerning, Ms. Johnson, like all other defendants, is entitled to a presumption of innocence. The district has and will continue to fully cooperate with the authorities in any continued investigation of these matters.”

Jeff Cagle/For the Sun-Times

Johnson and her attorney didn’t respond to requests for comment.

This week’s indictment details a web of dealings and companies, three of them led by Johnson and a romantic partner. That includes the company that allegedly took the $1.3 million payment from a reseller of air purifiers.

Johnson was involved in purchases and conversations that led to the Nov. 1, 2021, vote approving the $2.7 million purchase, according to the indictment, which said she voted in favor of the deal without disclosing “that she had a personal and economic interest in the sale" and later voted for a $201,000 payment for an “extended warranty” for the air purifiers.

Johnson’s companies ultimately paid her $7,500 in 2021, though she didn’t list them on her statement of economic interest filed with Kane County, the indictment says.

Her statements of economic interest were left blank between 2012 and 2024, the year she was accused of having a financial conflict of interest by an Aurora resident who challenged her eligibility for office. The challenge asserted that she had worked for vendors connected to the Elk Grove-based DJ Payne Corporation at least one of which did business with the school district when she was board president.

The board ruling on the challenge found it didn’t have the authority to challenge the validity of her economic statements and dropped the matter, records show.

In 2025, a year after the ruling, Johnson listed DJ Payne for the first time in her economic interest statement. The company’s website still lists Johnson as part of its sales team.