Effigy taken with permission

TOILET PRANK

Topekan refuses to say whom he allowed to take the display.

By MICHAEL RYAN

The Capital-Journal

Orville Johnson says his effigy of Mayor Joan Wagnon wasn't stolen from his yard after all.

It was, he said, taken with his permission --- by a friend he won't name.

"You figure it out," he said of the person's identity.

Before the Feb. 27 primary election, Johnson had displayed the homemade mannequin in his yard with its head in a toilet and a sign saying, "Flush Joan Wagnon." The dummy and toilet seat made their way to the hallway outside the mayor's office on election night after it became clear Wagnon had been eliminated in the preliminary four-way race for mayor.

Johnson said an acquaintance called him the night of the election and asked permission to take the display, which he granted. Johnson said he didn't know where it would be taken, only that he thought it would be taken "further west." He declined to explain what he meant by that.

Johnson earlier had told a Topeka Capital-Journal reporter that he didn't know who took the display.

Johnson said he "may have slipped in the word 'stolen' " when talking to police about the display's disappearance. But he said he had no intention of filing a false police report, only to get his display back.

"I may be getting myself in trouble," Johnson said of belatedly acknowledging his role in the incident. "I may be the only one guilty of a crime. I'm big enough to stand up for what I did."

Deputy Police Chief Ed Klumpp said Johnson never characterized the incident as a crime or anything else. After repeated attempts by detectives to interview him, Klumpp said, Johnson declined to talk to police on the advice of his attorney.

Klumpp said police aren't classifying the incident as a crime because the people who entered city hall that night had authorization to be there and because Johnson has refused to say whether the display was stolen.

As for the acquaintance who borrowed his display, Johnson said that person wasn't guilty of a crime and thus had no reason to "stand up for what they did."

Klumpp earlier had said Councilman John Alcala called police the day the mannequin was found and said he, along with Councilman Jim Gardner and County Commissioner Vic Miller, placed the display in City Hall. The three have neither confirmed nor denied their involvement.

Johnson contacted The Capital-Journal after a Tuesday editorial page column by Topekan Roger Aeschliman had opined that the taking of Johnson's mannequin had been a crime.

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