Johnny St. Valentine Brown

Johnny St. Valentine Brown (also known by the nickname Jehru) was a police detective for the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., who served as a chief investigator for a U.S. House committee studying drug trafficking and worked for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He also served as an advisor to Eric Sterling, counsel to the House committee responsible for the drafting of anti-drug laws.

Career As chief investigator and Sterling's advisor, he was instrumental in setting the "100-to-1 crack-to-powder" ratio and other weight-based triggers for sentencing guidelines in the "Len Bias Law" that set much stricter sentencing guidelines for drug offenders.

During his sentencing, Brown submitted several letters to the sentencing judge, Henry H. Kennedy Jr., in a bid for a more lenient sentence.

After giving Brown a favorable sentence of one year, Kennedy contacted each of the letter-writers to thank them for interest in Brown's case. However, it was learned that Brown had counterfeited each of the letters and the supposed writers were "stunned" to learn of the forgeries. Brown was then charged with contempt of court, for which he received an additional one year in prison, and ordered to stand trial for the forgeries.

Brown's conviction triggered the retrial of many convicted drug offenders in the D.C. area.