PHILADELPHIA — A federal jury acquitted Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson on federal bribery charges Wednesday, rejecting what his lawyers described as an overreaching prosecution that threatened to end his political career.
The panel of seven women and five men took less than four hours Wednesday to rebuff the government’s accusations that Johnson had sold the powers of his office to two nonprofit executives who funneled their payoffs through a sham $67,000 consulting contract with the Council member’s wife, Dawn Chavous.
Instead, the jury’s decision appeared to affirm defense criticism of the case as one lacking in evidence, based on conjecture, and strung together by investigators with facts “cherry-picked” to reach a predetermined conclusion.
Johnson, a three-term Democrat from Point Breeze, cradled his face and broke down in tears as a court clerk read out the “not guilty” verdicts for each of the two counts of honest services fraud that he and his wife faced.
Chavous — who had remained seemingly expressionless behind a mask for most of the retrial — collapsed on the defense table audibly sobbing in relief as her attorney, husband, and mother rushed to her side.
The couple emerged from the courthouse moments later to cheers and applause from a crowd of supporters.
“First and foremost,” the Council member said, addressing a crush of awaiting TV cameras, “I want to thank my lord and savior, Jesus Christ, for covering me and my family and allowing us to get a positive verdict today.”
For Johnson — whose 13 years in elected office came after an early career as an antiviolence activist and a stint as a staffer for State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams — the verdict delivered a measure of vindication after seven years under a cloud of suspicion brought on by the joint FBI and IRS investigation.
He and Chavous had predicted from the day they were indicted in 2020 that they would ultimately be acquitted. They showed no outward signs of wavering from that certainty after a previous jury deadlocked, prompting a mistrial earlier this year.
For prosecutors, the jury’s decision came as a stinging rebuke after a recent record of big swings and victories in bribery cases against the likes of labor leader John J. Dougherty, Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon, District Attorney Seth Williams, and U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
Jurors on Wednesday also acquitted the couple’s codefendants — Rahim Islam and Shahied Dawan, two former executives for Universal Companies, the South Philadelphia affordable-housing nonprofit and charter school operator founded by Philadelphia music icon Kenny Gamble — who were accused of providing the Council member with payoffs.
Both men still face a separate trial on charges that they embezzled more than $500,000 from the organization and bribed a school district official in Milwaukee as part of a separate corruption scheme.
That proceeding is set to begin Thursday in front of the same jury.
But throughout the week, the panel’s ability to deliver any verdict on the charges involving Johnson and Chavous seemed at times to be in doubt.
Hours before Wednesday’s decision, U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh took the unusual step of removing a juror, replacing her with an alternate and instructing the group to begin its discussions anew five days into the deliberations.
Though the judge did not offer any explanation in open court for his decision, it was preceded by days of frenzied, closed-door discussion as McHugh huddled with lawyers on both sides, summoned at least eight jurors to his chambers for individual interviews and twice visited the jury room himself.
A similar scenario played out in the 2016 corruption trial of Fattah, when a juror was removed from that panel for refusing to participate in deliberations.
As in that case, once the juror was replaced, the jury in Johnson and Chavous’ trial announced it had reached a unanimous decision within hours. Neither prosecutors nor defense lawyers offered any explanation Wednesday for what prompted the juror’s dismissal.
Johnson, for his part, said he was focused on putting the trial behind him and returning to his job on Council.
Whether he will face any repercussions for the conflicts of interest posed by his wife’s consulting work and exposed throughout the trial remains to be seen.
Twice, Johnson took official actions that benefited Universal — first in 2014 to push zoning legislation through Council that advanced the nonprofit’s planned redevelopment of the historic Royal Theater on South Street, and then again that same year to block a city effort to reclaim a parcel of properties it had sold to the nonprofit at 13th and Bainbridge Streets.
All the while, Universal was paying Chavous — a charter schools advocate, Sen. Williams’ former chief of staff, and a politically connected consultant in her own right — under a contract that Johnson had failed to disclose.
Prosecutors rejected the notion that Johnson’s lapse could be chalked up to a mere mistake and described it instead as strong evidence he was hiding his misdeeds.
But they presented little direct evidence against the couple, relying instead on a largely circumstantial series of emails, business records, bank statements and invoices that they argued left little doubt that bribery had occurred.
The case’s lead investigator, FBI Special Agent Richard Haag, estimated that Chavous had done fewer than 40 hours of work for the $66,750 Universal paid her between 2013 and 2014. He suggested that her next-to-nonexistent workload was indicative that the true purpose for her contract was to hide the payoffs to her husband.
Still, the defense balked throughout the trial not only at Haag’s dismissal of Chavous’ efforts on Universal’s behalf but also the presumptuousness of prosecutors’ efforts to assign their own value to her work.
Her attorney, Barry Gross, pointed to several instances of Chavous’ performing what he described as valuable services to the nonprofit including helping to fund-raise, introducing executives to her network of wealthy education philanthropists, and setting up tours and meetings to raise awareness about its schools.
“They got up there and devalued this woman’s work,” he said during his closing argument to the jury last week.
As for Johnson, his attorney, Patrick Egan, argued that it made no sense that Universal would have had to bribe the Council member to earn his support.
He’d built his political career on supporting affordable housing and expanding access to good schools in his district, Egan said. And he’d conditioned his support for the Royal Theater rezoning bill on the nonprofit’s working to ameliorate the concerns of neighbors who were opposed to the proposed design.
“The bottom line is, you can’t make evidence that doesn’t exist,” Egan said. “And it never existed.”
Meanwhile, Johnson, the trial now behind him, ducked into an awaiting SUV with a thumbs-up and a wave.
”I’m looking forward to getting back to addressing the issue of gun violence in the city of Philadelphia,” he said. “And most importantly, representing my constituents in the 2nd District and moving the city of Philadelphia forward.”
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(Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Ximena Conde contributed to this article.)
