Kenyatta Johnson’s bribery trial starts today — the second for a city councilmember in a year

From the day he and his wife were indicted on federal bribery charges two years ago, Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson vowed they would be vindicated once they could put their case in front of a jury.

That opportunity arrives this week. But federal prosecutors say they like their chances, too.

Jury selection began Monday in a trial in which the government alleges Johnson — a three-term Democrat from Point Breeze — accepted more than $66,000 in bribes in 2013 and 2014 to aid a financially struggling nonprofit desperate to hold on to its real estate holdings in his district.

» READ MORE: Kenyatta Johnson and Dawn Chavous bribery trial: What you need to know

Whatever the outcome, the proceedings are certain to further unsettle a Council already shaken by the corruption conviction of another of its members — Bobby Henon — less than four months ago.

Should he be convicted, Johnson, like Henon, would be forced to give up his seat, making him the second member of Council to do so this year — a churn not seen since the Abscam scandal of the 1980s, which saw three Council members booted due to federal bribery convictions.

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

He’d also be facing up to 20 years in prison on each of the two counts of honest services fraud with which he is charged.

But as Johnson, 48, prepared Friday to confront that possibility in court, he projected confidence that he wouldn’t be following Henon to prison.

» READ MORE: Bobby Henon has resigned from City Council. What happens next for his Northeast Philly district?

“We remain faithful and I know that all things work for the best of those that love the Lord,” he told the crowd of more than 200 gathered at a pre-trial prayer service in South Philadelphia last week. Friends, family, clergy, and elected officials — including several of Johnson’s Council colleagues, and State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams — packed Yesha Ministries on Friday to pray for the couple ahead of their court date.

» READ MORE: With bribery trial looming, Kenyatta Johnson seeks a boost from the power of prayer

Meanwhile, across town, prosecutors were quietly shoring up a case they’ve been building for seven years.

In a court filing earlier this month, they outlined the evidence they say proves Johnson accepted payoffs — in the form of a consulting contract for his wife, Dawn Chavous — from two executives at Universal Companies, the South Philadelphia community development charity and charter school operator founded by renowned music producer Kenny Gamble.

Chavous did next to nothing for the $66,750 she received from the charity, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Eric Gibson and Mark Dubnoff wrote. And in exchange, they argued, Johnson used the powers of his office to twice intervene on Universal’s behalf, protecting properties it owned from seizure and passing zoning legislation that substantially increased the resale value of another.

“The real value that Chavous provided … was that she was married to Johnson,” the prosecutors wrote.

But Chavous, 42, a political consultant and charter school advocate, calls that characterization sexist and demeaning.

» READ MORE: Wife of indicted Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson: ‘I haven’t done anything wrong’ | Jenice Armstrong

“To have implied that I received any financial benefit as a result of my marriage and not my own work ethic is simply untrue,” she said in a statement at the time of her indictment. “It impugns my reputation, and worse, it relies on the old trope that women only owe their success to the men in their lives.”

Her lawyer, Barry Gross, said they would show at trial that Chavous did considerable work for Universal and brought a wealth of experience to the nonprofit’s charter school operation.

But which version of Chavous’ role at Universal the jury believes will swing on the evidence prosecutors present in court.

Unlike the bribery trial of Henon and labor leader John Dougherty last year — which was rife with wiretapped recordings that ultimately helped secure their convictions — the government team running Johnson’s case will rely primarily on troves of business records, emails, text messages and testimony from potentially more than 50 witnesses to make their case.

The list includes notable figures such as State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, whom Johnson and Chavous both worked for earlier in their careers; Philadelphia schools Superintendent William R. Hite Jr.; prominent developer Ori Feibush, who ran unsuccessfully to unseat Johnson in 2015; and Joel Greenberg, one of the founding partners of Susquehanna International Group, the Bala Cynwyd-based investment firm that has given millions to political campaigns for pro-charter school politicians.

Jurors may also hear from Gamble, one-half of the famed music-producing duo Gamble and Huff and founder of the nonprofit behind the alleged bribes. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing. If anything, prosecutors say, he is a victim of crimes committed by the two executives at his nonprofit accused of bribing Johnson — former CEO, Abdul Rahim Islam, and ex-CFO Shahied Dawan.

In fact, much of the 42-page indictment in the case is focused on unrelated alleged misdeeds by Islam and Dawan. They will face a separate trial after the verdict on the Johnson and Chavous bribery counts on charges that they embezzled more than $500,000 from Universal over two years and involved themselves in a separate bribery scheme with the former school board president in Milwaukee.

» READ MORE: Execs at Kenny Gamble’s charter school operator implicated in federal bribery probe

Prosecutors say their graft left Universal in a position where by 2013 the nonprofit was overleveraged and teetering on the verge of financial collapse. That’s why, according to the indictment, they were so dependent upon Johnson’s intervention on Council to bail them out.

For 14 years, Universal had struggled to redevelop the Royal Theater property on South Street — a historic African American movie palace that through years of neglect had become an eyesore.

» READ MORE: Royal disappointment: Historic theater languishes in Gamble's hands

The structure was on the verge of collapse when the nonprofit purchased it for $286,252 in 2000 with plans to revive it as an entertainment venue. And despite receiving nearly a half-million dollars from city, state and federal coffers between that year and 2011, Universal made little progress.

Efforts to sell went nowhere due to potential buyers’ doubts about the economic viability of developing the site under its zoning restrictions at the time. The building’s condition grew so bad that in 2013, a neighbor filed to strip Universal of its ownership under Pennsylvania’s Blighted and Abandoned Property Conservatorship Law.

In response, the nonprofit abruptly changed course. It turned to Johnson for help getting the Royal site rezoned for mixed-use development featuring apartments and retail space just a day before Islam met with Chavous in 2013 to offer her a consulting contract with Universal’s charter school arm.

Despite Johnson’s support — and the zoning change he successfully pushed through Council — Universal’s efforts to redevelop the Royal stalled out again. But with the property’s more desirable zoning, the nonprofit sold the Royal within a year for $3.7 million — more than 12 times what it originally paid.

» READ MORE: Timeline: The case against Kenyatta Johnson and Dawn Chavous

Prosecutors have also alleged that Islam and Dawan paid Chavous $18,000 when Universal was in danger of losing its ownership of a parcel of properties at 13th and Bainbridge Streets. The nonprofit had bought them in 2005 at a cut-rate price of $3 under a contract with the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority that required it to build 109 single-family homes on the site within 18 months.

By 2013, the land remained undeveloped, was strewn with trash and was the subject of neighbor complaints. When the authority began the process to revoke Universal’s ownership for failing to uphold the original contract, Chavous emailed Islam and Dawan to warn them.

They allegedly issued the check to her days before Johnson exercised councilmanic prerogative — the tradition by which individual members of Council hold final approval over nearly all land-use decisions in their districts — to keep the properties under Universal’s control. They’re worth an estimated $2.5 million today.

But Johnson’s lawyer, Patrick Egan, balked at the notion that the timing of Universal’s contracts with Chavous and its business with Johnson were anything more than a coincidence.

“It’s ridiculous to think that Universal would need to bribe Councilman Johnson to support an institution that has been one of the mainstays of affordable housing and education choice in South Philadelphia for decades,” he said in an interview last week. “Why the hell would they need to do that?”

As for the couple’s chances at trial, he said: “They’re looking forward to having the public hear the whole story … and feel very strongly at the end of the day that they’ll be vindicated.”