Kenyatta Johnson associate admits using ties to the Philly council president to profit from sales of city-owned lands

A childhood friend of Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson admitted in court Monday that he’d traded on that connection to skirt regulations, defraud taxpayers, and make a killing buying and reselling city-owned properties in rapidly gentrifying Point Breeze.

Felton Hayman, 53, of Wilmington, told a federal judge he enlisted the Council member’s aid to purchase city land in the neighborhood at cut-rate prices. He then failed to deliver on contingencies in the sales agreements requiring him to build affordable housing on the parcels.

Instead, he flipped the properties in some cases for as much as 15 times what he originally paid, netting him more than $1 million in profit between 2014 and 2018.

Specifically, Hayman pleaded guilty Monday to three federal counts of wire fraud tied to transactions involving three properties in 2018, on which he made a profit of roughly $143,000. While prosecutors noted earlier transactions involving three other Point Breeze lots on which Hayman sold for more than $1 million than he originally paid, they fell outside the statute of limitations and were not specifically tied to any charges in his indictment.

“I pleaded guilty to something I actually done,” Hayman told U.S. District Judge Mark A. Kearney during a hearing Monday. He now faces up to 20 years in prison on each count.

Despite the role Johnson — a three-term Democrat from Point Breeze — played in facilitating the sales, prosecutors have made clear since Hayman was indicted last year that they consider the Council member to be a victim of, not an accomplice in, his friend’s schemes, and they have not accused him of any wrongdoing.

Charging documents repeatedly noted that Hayman “failed to disclose” to Johnson that he had no intention of following through with his promises to build affordable housing on the land.

But Hayman’s admissions are not the first time Johnson’s land-use decisions have drawn scrutiny for how they’ve benefited his friends and political allies.

The Inquirer documented several of those transactions — including some of the land deals involving Hayman — in a 2016 investigation.

» READ MORE: Developers bought low and sold high with the help of Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson

Johnson and his wife, Dawn Chavous, were also indicted but ultimately acquitted in 2022 in an unrelated case on charges alleging, in part, that they’d accepted payoffs from a pair of nonprofit executives looking for the Council member’s help in holding on to properties they’d bought from the city.

In both that case and Hayman’s, Johnson relied on a custom known as councilmanic prerogative — the tradition by which members of Council hold final approval over nearly all land-use decisions in their districts — to assist the nonprofit executives and his childhood friend.

He’s defended prerogative power as a practice that helps give residents a voice in neighborhood development through their elected representatives and streamlines the development process. But critics of the tradition, which is not codified in city law, maintain that allowing one legislator unchecked sway over land use makes the system vulnerable to unethical behavior.

» READ MORE: Councilmanic prerogative in Philadelphia: What you need to know

In Hayman’s case, his long history with Johnson had raised concern even before federal authorities got involved.

Hayman and Johnson grew up together in Point Breeze but ultimately took different paths. Johnson went into politics — first working as an aide to State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, then winning office himself as a state representative before his election to Council in 2011.

Hayman, meanwhile, found himself in prison for 15 years after he pleaded guilty in 1991 to a third-degree murder charge. Police said he, then a gang member, had helped concoct a plan to kill a rival drug dealer. The hit went awry when some of Hayman’s coconspirators shot and killed the wrong man in a West Oak Lane tavern.

After release from prison, Hayman worked as a driver and legal assistant to a Philadelphia lawyer before going into the construction business.

When, in 2014, Hayman expressed interest in redeveloping three city-owned vacant lots in the now booming neighborhood where he and Johnson were raised, the Council member was willing to help.

Hayman said he intended to build “three-story homes for affordable housing” on the lots on Ellsworth and Manton Streets. And Johnson letters to the city’s Vacant Property Review Committee — one of the bodies that controlled the sale of city-owned lands — endorsing the proposal.

Because of councilmanic prerogative, the committee unanimously approved Hayman’s purchase allowing him to jump the line of other potential buyers without having to engage in a competitive bidding process that might have brought in more money for the land.

Hayman ultimately paid $70,488 for all three lots later in 2014. But despite his promises, he sold them all within two years for a combined $1.1 million — more than $1 million more than what he’d originally paid. No affordable housing was ever built on the properties.

But while prosecutors detailed those transactions in their case against Hayman, they fell outside the five-year statute of limitations on the wire fraud counts with which he was ultimately charged. He pleaded guilty Monday to charges tied to another set of land deals that played out for years after the first.

With those properties — three parcels on South Bucknell and Titan Streets — Hayman was so sure of Johnson’s support that he had real estate agents list them before the sales were even finalized.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia Councilman Kenyatta Johnson helped friend make $165,000 flipping city-owned lots

That sale was approved in August 2018 for a total of $101,000. But as early as three months before the titles were officially transferred to him, Hayman was looking to off-load the lots to potential buyers for $150,000 apiece.

He managed to sell two of the properties he’d picked up as part of the deal within a matter of weeks for a combined $230,000 — more than three times what he’d originally paid — for a roughly $142,000 profit.

Johnson did not return requests for comment on Hayman’s guilty plea Monday, though his attorney, Patrick J. Egan, has previously said the Council member’s “interest, as always, has been for improving the community while attempting to preserve affordable and workforce housing.”

Hayman’s attorney, Robert B. Mozenter, acknowledged his client’s crimes but characterized them as a “silly mistake.”

“He made a mistake that a lot of other people do,” he said. “Sometimes good people do bad things and then they’re redeemed...I advised him to fight the case.”

Kearney, the judge, set Hayman’s sentencing date for Aug. 12

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with response from Hayman’s attorney.