and cocaine, and ecstasy.
The mother of Tony T. Robinson Jr., the 19-year-old mixed-race man shot and killed by a white police officer in 2015, revving up the Madison protest machine, has been arrested for dealing cocaine, fentanyl, and MDMA, aka ecstasy.
Jail booking photo
Andrea Rochelle Johnson — formerly known as Andrea Irwin — is charged with eight felony counts of dealing cocaine laced with fentanyl in four separate deals in October and November. Those charges carry penalties ranging from 12½ years to 15 years in prison and/or from $12,000 to $25,000 in fines each.
As the result of a November search warrant of her east-side Coolidge Street apartment, Irwin/Johnson is also charged with two more crimes: intent to deliver up to 50 grams of fentanyl, and also of 82 tablets of the hallucinogenic MDMA, aka ecstasy. The maximum penalty for each of those crimes is 25 years and/or $100,000. She has been released on signature bond.
Arrested in conjunction with Johnson is Carl D. Miller, age 44. Miller, the charging document states, was the undercover police officer’s contact. Miller would then go to Johnson’s apartment to acquire the drugs in the four street deals, it is alleged.
A very public personage
Then known as Andrea Irwin, Johnson, age 46, was something of a civil rights star, appearing at rallies and in the mass media to decry police violence following the shooting death of her son, Tony T. Robinson Jr. on 03-06-2015. In that case, two other 19 year olds summoned police after Robinson began randomly assaulting strangers on Williamson Street. Robinson had ingested hallucinogenic mushrooms, off-prescription Xanax, and marijuana. His supplier was never charged.
The responding police officer heard “sounds of incoherent yelling and screaming.” Thinking another victim may be in danger, the cop ascended the stairs to the second-floor apartment. In the stairwell, he countered Robinson, who struck the officer several times, causing a concussion. The white police officer shot Robinson, who was unarmed. An independent state investigation exonerated the officer as acting in self-defense, a decision upheld by District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, who declined to prosecute.
The city’s insurer paid Robinson’s family $3.3 million in a civil, wrongful death case settled out of court in February 2017, without any City input. On 05-23-17 Andrea Irwin received $972,002 as her share of the estate of Tony Robinson Jr., according to probate records. Yet, in the current drug dealing case, Irwin/Johnson qualified for a public defender.
Irwin urged the many protests following her son’s death be peaceful. “I’ve never claimed to be a part of the Black Lives Matter movement. I support it, but I’m not a part of it,” says Irwin, who is white. “I’m not against the police department; I never have been. I believe in law and order,” she told Isthmus in January 2016.
Family tragedies
Andrea Irwin later married Walter Lewis Johnson. She filed for divorce in July 2021 but that action was dismissed in February 2022, according to court records. That man was charged with vehicular homicide while intoxicated and first-degree reckless homicide in the June 2021 death of Robinson’s 15-year-old sister, Andrea’s daughter, Kyla Robinson. She was a passenger. Johnson was driving 30 miles over the 55 mph speed limit on S. Stoughton Road, prosecutors allege. A blood draw taken from Johnson was positive for methamphetamine and amphetamine. That case remains open; a court status conference is scheduled for 02-02-24.
Last August, Johnson was charged with felony bail jumping, a case still pending, after earlier charges of domestic abuse and criminal damage to property, also pending.
In August 2016, Andrea’s mother Sharon Irwin — along with Shadayra Kilfoy Flores, a member of the City’s Police Civilian Oversight Board — brought charges before the police and fire commission against police chief Mike Koval for calling her “a raging lunatic” for repeatedly shouting at the chief, now retired. The PFC found Koval acted inappropriately but ordered no discipline.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: A preliminary hearing on Irwin/Johnson’s drug charges is scheduled January 26 in Dane County Circuit court.
19 responses to “Tony T. Robinson’s mother busted for dealing fentanyl”
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Maybe she was unlawfully arrested and charged. It will be a good one for the Police Civilian Oversight Board to look into instead of just meeting .
I must have missed the Wisconsin State Journal’s coverage. Can you tell me where you got the info?
You did not miss the WI State Journal’s coverage. I got the info from court records and the Dane County Sheriff’s Department.
looks like she blew the $3 million settlement. CCAP shows over 10 felony charges.
Wait for it: she’ll claim her criminality is due to the shooting of Tony Robinson. Rollie will use it as further proof of systemic racism. Can’t make this stuff up.
“Rollie will use it as further proof of systemic racism.”
Jeepers, Kooter…it’s FAR more complicated than that….it simply must be; perhaps Structurally Systemic Institutionally Intersectional Fragility salted with RAYcism most foul…?
The Gotch
She’s just taking over the family business.
This happened 3 and 4 months ago and we’re just finding out about it now???
Congrats to Blaska, who should be tickled to find that a Google Search for Andrea Rochelle Johnson arrested for dealing drugs features the Blaska Policy Werkes at the top of the search results!
Funniest thing; really not too much else, if anything, beyond that.
The Gotch
She has always struck me as basically a good person. I thought she did the right thing moving away from Madison after the settlement. Not sure California was an ideal choice.
She probably feels like she’s wearing a perpetual “kick me” sign at this point. I hope things turn around for her somehow.
“Not sure California was an ideal choice.”
She’s been charged locally; was she commuting to deal?
The Gotch
FYI … https://isthmus.com/news/news/tony-robinsons-mother-is-moving-to-california/
Her residence listed as Coolidge St., east side of Madison.
Wasn’t it Tony Robinson’s grandmother that kept the legal actions against the police?
“What more needs to be said?”
That anyone with half a brain should now understand where Tony Robinson’s degenerate criminal behavior came from. And that it’s supremely pathetic that grifting the city of Madison for a king’s ransom wasn’t enough to keep Sharon Irwin out of drug trafficking. And that if the WSJ had any integrity left, they’d have put this story on page one as soon as it broke.
This is Andrea not Sharon. A page 1 story does what good? Another cautionary tale? We’ve seen the same thing play out with lottery winners many times.
I wrote Sharon (Tony’s grandmother) but meant Andrea—easy to confuse two extortionist look-alikes from the same family who have obviously been into an unhealthy amount of drugs.
A front page story makes it clear to Madison taxpayers that their city is willing to bend over for race pimps any time a police officer shoots a black person in self-defense. Because if enough taxpayers knew this, there just might be a backlash against the city officials that kowtow to this extortion.
“A front page story makes it clear to Madison taxpayers that their city is willing to bend over for race pimps”
In Madison this is not a bug, it’s a feature.
Best exemplified by our Mayor, Satya “Thank you for your anger” Rhodes-Conway. FYI she won re-election in a landslide.
The Robinson settlement on the other hand was strictly a best practice financial decision.
By any objective measure, this is news. What in the world would it be doing in the Wisconsin State Journal?