A Washington DC council member has been arrested on charges of accepting $156,000 in bribes in exchange for using his political position to help private companies secure public contracts for violence prevention.
Trayon White, a Democrat and former unsuccessful mayoral candidate who has also previously been accused of spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories, was arrested after FBI agents raided a luxury high-rise apartment where he had been staying in the capital’s Navy Yard neighbourhood, on Sunday, the Washington Post reported.
His arrest followed a US Department of Justice investigation. White made a brief appearance in court on Monday and a judge agreed to release him while he awaits trial, according to the Post. The judge told him that if convicted, he faces a maximum 15 years in prison.
White, 40, represents Ward 8, a predominantly Black area in south-east Washington marked by urban deprivation and gun violence. He chairs the council’s committee on recreation, libraries and youth affairs – which oversees several public agencies.
In a statement, the justice department alleged that White had accepted bribes in exchange for using his position to pressure officials with two agencies, the department for youth rehabilitation services and the office of neighborhood safety and engagement, to extend contracts worth $5.2m for two companies that provided violence intervention services.
The statement said White had been captured on video agreeing to accept bribes that were calculated at 3% of the total value of the contracts. He had accepted separate payments of $35,000 in cash on four occasions stretching back to June, with the most recent exchange taking place on 9 August.
“Because the investigation into the alleged bribery scheme involved contracts that could soon be awarded and other potential official acts that could be taken, our office took swift steps to address the alleged crimes we were investigating,” said Matthew Graves, the US attorney for the District of Columbia.
White is also accused of accepting a $20,000 bribe to resolve a contract dispute for one of the companies by pressing high-level officials, according to an affidavit from an FBI investigator.
An FBI informant who agreed to submit a guilty plea to fraud and bribery charges, reported giving White travel gifts to the Dominican Republic and Las Vegas as well as paying him bribes.
A one-time protege of the former Washington DC mayor Marion Barry, White was first elected to the council in 2016, and is expected to be elected for a third term in November, when he is up against a Republican challenger.
In 2018, he was accused of antisemitism after posting a video on Facebook that promoted a conspiracy theory that an unexpectedly heavy snowfall had been due to “the Rothschilds [a historically prominent Jewish banking family] controlling the climate to create natural disasters”.
He later apologised and claimed he was unaware that the theory was antisemitic. Video footage subsequently emerged of him asking a question at a council meeting based on the premise that the Rothschilds controlled the World Bank and US federal government.
White is known for on-the-ground activism and for often turning up at crime scenes when there is community anger.
In 2022, he launched a campaign to become Washington’s mayor that failed to get past the primary stage but prompted an investigation by the Office of Campaign Finance. The office imposed a $40,000 fine this year, stating the committees for his mayoral campaign and his successful 2020 re-election bid had failed to provide documentation it requested to explain discrepancies in reported expenditures and contributions. It later said White had appealed against the 2020 sanction.
