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Johnny Smiles
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Johnny Smiles
A ship is always at risk...at every hour, minute and second! That's where I come in. I am a peacekeeper...the one and only guardian to an otherwise defenceless ship! The name's Smiles. Johnny Smiles... Security guard supreme.

Johnny Smiles is an incompetent security guard on a large freighter. He was called as a witness in Espella Cantabella's trial in London. He has a liking for chocolate, and thus always keeps a bar of it on his person.

Crime on a freighter[]

Main article: English Turnabout

One night, Johnny Smiles was doing his usual patrol on the freighter he worked while eating his chocolate, when he suddenly heard a noise. At first thinking it was nothing, Smiles thought somebody was there. So he grabbed his stick out of his pocket and headed toward the source of the sounds, chocolate fingerprints got on his flashlight. He stumbled upon a crime scene in the cargo hold; the ship's chef, Olivia Aldente, was knocked unconscious, while Espella Cantabella was standing beside her with a metal pipe in her hands and a PC Badger plush doll nearby. Given the scene in front of him, Smiles quickly concluded that Cantabella was the culprit, and so had her arrested.

The next day, Johnny Smiles was called to court to testify about the crime. After speaking about the events he had witnessed, he stated that there was nothing else out of order at the crime scene. However, Phoenix Wright, Cantabella's defense attorney, pointed out in a photograph of the crime scene that one of the crates had been tampered with. Wright criticized Smiles for not doing his job right as a security guard, as he had not noticed something so obvious. Smiles tried to counter this accusation by stating that a dim security light was the only source of light in the room, aside from his flashlight, and so it would have been easy to have overlooked such a detail. He continued his testimony by claiming that Cantabella and Aldente had been facing each other during their confrontation, but Wright retorted that the chef had been struck on the back of her head. This would have been impossible if the two had indeed been facing each other, and so Smiles' testimony was deemed unreliable.

Johnny Smiles made a last attempt to redeem himself by presenting a PC Badger doll's tag as evidence, in order to prove that Cantabella had been trying to steal the cargo of dolls. He explained that he had not handed it over to the police because it was his "secret weapon" to single-handedly settle the trial. This was in vain, however, as Prosecutor Flynch dismissed Smiles in order to call Aldente as a witness instead. The guard pleaded to stay and start over, but Flynch refused and advised him to go back to watching crime shows.

It would eventually be proven by Wright that Cantabella was innocent of the assault charge and that Aldente was, in fact, smuggling valuable stolen jewels inside the PC Badger dolls. However, despite this, the identity of Aldente's assailant was left unsolved.

Name[]

  • His English, German, Italian and Dutch surnames are references to the almost constant smile on his face.
  • His full French name, "Thibault Gaus", comes from the French expression "beau gosse", which means "handsome boy".
  • His Spanish surname comes from the word "fanfare", which can mean an ostentatious flourish or display, which suits his character.
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