“I really said: I have to change my life,” he told the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on February 1.
“When I got out, I made a decision that I was going to walk away and I didn’t care about what the consequences was.
“And I said to myself, I’ve been doing bad for so long, I’m going to try to do something good. If all else fails, I could always go back to doing something bad.”
Johnson said he was working with young people at Queens Defenders, a criminal justice organisation in New York, and has been pictured with Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney.
As he was led away by police on Thursday, he shouted to reporters: “I’m innocent!”
The apartment manager in Small’s building reported seeing a suspect at 2am on the night of the killing, wearing a variety of disguises and carrying bags and a bin through the hallway.
In one CCTV image, a man is shown wearing a blonde wig under a hooded jacket. The same man appears in different images wearing three different hats.
The building manager told the New York Post he had seen a man acting suspiciously after the shots were heard.
“We tried to see if he took out the bin,” he said. “He never took out the bin. I told them, ‘Look for a bin.’ And sure enough, [the body] was there.”
He added that he had seen the suspect driving away in Small’s blue Audi, wearing the wig.
“[He was] dressing differently, changing his character,” he said. “That’s not normal, he is hiding something.”
Johnson appeared in court on Thursday night and was remanded in custody without bail.
