



Bill Johnson, a former Alabama gubernatorial candidate, has left his wife and family in Prattville to be with babies he secretly conceived as a sperm donor in New Zealand.

Johnson's wife, Kathy Hale Johnson, told the New Zealand Herald that Johnson recently returned to live in New Zealand where he donated sperm to at least 10 women without her knowledge.

"He wants me to move over there. He's not coming back,” she told the newspaper.

She said Johnson plans to apply for residency so he can stay in New Zealand, and that he intends to donate sperm to additional women.

"He is obsessed with this. He doesn't want to stop," she said.

Johnson made headlines in December when the news broke that he had fathered multiple children in New Zealand, where he was working as a contractor for disaster relief company Ceres NZ.

Johnson, a former Birmingham city councilman and cabinet member for Gov. Bob Riley, said he was unable to have children with his wife and that the desire to father a child was “a need that I have.”

Kathy Johnson, a two-time Mrs America finalist with three children from a previous relationship, said the first baby is a girl and due to arrive this month. There are at least two others, also girls, who are due in June and July, she said.

Johnson began donating sperm after arriving in Christchurch in 2011 to work on earthquake recovery. He created an online persona "chchbill" on unofficial websites for those seeking sperm donors. Some women later claimed he misled them about his background and the number of partners that he impregnated, raising concerns among New Zealand fertility specialists.

"He doesn't really know how many pregnancies there are out there. Some women were so angry they didn't want to talk to him again," she said.

Kathy Johnson said her husband returned to Alabama late last year. He assured her that the donations were non-sexual, she said.

The couple sought counseling, she said, and attempted to reconcile their marriage. But Kathy Johnson said her husband told her just after Easter that he was returning to Christchurch to be there when the babies start arriving.

And Johnson, she said, is seeking to resume his role as a sperm donor, primarily to lesbian couples unable to have their own children.

Kathy Johnson said that, before her husband left, "he told me he is not going to stop".

"I said 'you're walking away from a good marriage and a strong family that is willing to come to forgiveness'."

"I will not chase him to the other side of the world so he can be a part-time father to children he created with other women."

Johnson, 52, finished fifth among a field of seven candidates for governor in the 2010 GOP primary, capturing less than 2 percent of the vote. He ran as a conservative Christian who opposed gay marriage.

A graduate of Mobile’s Spring Hill College, Johnson served as a Birmingham city councilman from 1997-2001. He went on to help lead Riley’s 2002 and 2006 campaigns for governor, and was appointed by Riley as director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, a position he held from 2003 to 2009.

Kathy Johnson said she had fought for five months to save her marriage but could not break her husband's fixation on the babies he had biologically fathered.

"He's back there now. He says he has a commitment to them. He says he created these children and he has a responsibility to them," she says.

"I said 'what about your commitment to your wife.' He walked out."