In early March 2026, a claim spread online that "Katie Johnson," a woman who accused U.S. President Donald Trump of raping her when she was 13, had been arrested and charged with crimes related to "fraud, theft and exploitation of an elderly person."
The rumor circulated on X, Facebook and Instagram. Many of these claims included an image supposedly showing Johnson. Snopes readers also searched the website for information on whether Johnson was actually arrested.
"Katie Johnson" is likely a pseudonym that someone used to file a lawsuit against Trump in 2016 involving unsubstantiated allegations under suspicious circumstances, as we previously confirmed, including the fact that it was promoted by "Jerry Springer Show" producer Norm Lubow, who used a false name to act as Johnson's publicist and has a professional history of using individuals to create fictional salacious drama.
Given that Johnson herself has not, as of this writing, confirmed her real name — in fact, journalists have called into question whether she is even a real person — it was impossible to substantiate any claims that she was facing criminal charges. As such, we have not rated this claim, although there's no evidence to back it up based on Google and criminal case searches.
We've reached out to Thomas Francis Meagher and J. Cheney Mason, both of whom are lawyers associated with Johnson, to ask if they have information about the claim and will update this story if and when we learn more.
Trump has repeatedly denied all sexual assault allegations made against him.
This claim appeared to originate (screenshotted) from Facebook user Terrence K. Williams, a conservative, pro-Trump comedian who has previously spread false and unfounded claims debunked by Snopes. Williams did not immediately return a direct message on Facebook asking if he started the rumor, if he had credible sources to back it up and if he meant for the claim to be taken seriously or as satire.
Williams or another internet user may have confused Johnson with another woman, identified only as Jane Doe, who accused Trump of sexual assault connected to Epstein in the 1980s.
The Guardian, a progressive newspaper based in the United Kingdom, reported in February 2026 that it had identified a woman matching the biographical details of that Jane Doe and she "has faced several fraud and theft charges in Washington and, in 2023, a felony charge for the exploitation of an elderly person in Georgia."
Johnson accused Trump of rape in an alleged 1994 incident, about a decade after the other accuser's alleged sexual assault took place.
A reverse image search determined that the image circulating alongside this claim, allegedly of Johnson, actually appears to be a young Nadia Bjorlin, an American actor and model best known for her former role in the soap opera "Days of Our Lives."
No evidence 'Katie Johnson' arrested
A Google search for information about Johnson's supposed criminal charges under the assumption that "Katie Johnson" is the woman's real name returned no relevant results from reputable news outlets. Reporters have repeatedly attempted to contact Johnson. We reported in 2024 that only one reporter succeeded: Emily Shugerman at a defunct news site called the Revelist. Shugerman wrote in the resulting article that she left the phone call questioning whether Johnson really existed.
As such, if the woman who called herself Johnson had been arrested, it would not be surprising that no reporter uncovered it. However, that also means there are no credible sources corroborating this unsubstantiated claim.
Johnson filed her first lawsuit against Trump using an address in Twentynine Palms, a city in California's San Bernardino County. She apparently used bogus contact information: gossip site Radar Online said the address was a foreclosed house whose owner had recently died. Filings indicated the court dropped the case because it could not contact her at the address she provided or locate a forwarding address.
Still, we searched San Bernardino County's "Inmate Locator" tool to determine whether law enforcement there had booked anyone named Katie Johnson, who, based on the lawsuit, would be 44 or 45 years old at the time of this writing. The system returned no results.
A lawsuit nearly identical to Johnson's was also filed in a New York court under the pseudonym "Jane Doe" in September 2016. Doe voluntarily dropped the lawsuit two months later. Those court documents don't include the plaintiff's address, but list her location as "California." That's not enough information to search for city or county jail records, but a search within California state prison records — as in, people who have been convicted and sent to prison, rather than in jail awaiting trial — returned no results for a "Katie Johnson" between the ages of 40 and 50 years old.
In Johnson's first lawsuit, the court document said she would represent herself. In the "Jane Doe" lawsuit, the accuser filed court documents with Meagher and Mason listed as her representation. Meagher and Mason did not immediately return emails asking if they knew whether the woman they represented had been arrested or not.