By VALERIE KALFRIN
The Tampa Tribune

TAMPA - A relative of the Devil Rays’ Elijah Dukes - who is being investigated by child protection authorities because a 17-year-old foster child in her care was impregnated - did not want to talk to a reporter this morning.

Johnnie Johnson, 65, threw up her hands and said, “No comments! No comments!” Wednesday morning when a reporter visited her home at 4210 W. Nassau St.

Johnson is the step-grandmother of the professional ballplayer. She was a foster parent for the teenage girl, now 18, and her home is being reviewed by Hillsborough Kids Inc., officials said. The teenager said in a police report that Dukes, 22, is her baby’s father.

Dukes’ estranged wife, NiShea Gilbert, said she heard from a woman familiar with the situation about the pregnancy.

A Tampa police report does not offer any forensic evidence that Dukes is the child’s father, but Gilbert said, “With Elijah’s track record, believe me, it’s his.”

Court records show Dukes has fathered five children, including two with Gilbert, who is seeking a divorce.

Gilbert said other women have called her home in Brandon in the past saying Dukes has impregnated them. He has apologized for his infidelities but also tells her, “You don’t understand,” Gilbert said.

She said she is concerned not about being embarrassed by the infidelity but about her health.

“You’re married and you’re having sex with strangers? It’s disgusting,” she said. “Do you even know what a condom is? You put my life in jeopardy, playing Russian roulette with my life.”

The police report does not identify the teenager, whom Gilbert said she does not know. The teenager lives in Riverview with a friend identified in the report only as Linda.

According to the report, a detective interviewed Johnson and the teenager about the baby’s paternity after police received an anonymous tip that Dukes had impregnated the girl.

The teenager came to live with Johnson in December 2005, the report states. Her baby is due in November.

Johnson told police she never left the teenager alone, but the teenager told police she and Dukes had had sex on the living-room sofa, the report states.

When the teenager told Dukes in March she was pregnant, “he got mad and threw a Gatorade at me,” the teenager said in the report.

Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said police could not charge Dukes criminally because Florida law allows adults between the ages of 18 and 23 to have consensual sex with 16- and 17-year-olds.

Detectives also could not charge Johnson criminally, but that will not affect the review of her foster home by the child-protective agency, McElroy said.

“It’s not illegal to leave a 17-year-old home alone,” McElroy said. “There is no indication she created an unsafe environment.”

Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800.

 

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