Kenyatta Johnson bribery trial: Lawyers make their case in closing arguments

There was one point upon which lawyers on opposite sides of Kenyatta Johnson’s federal bribery trial agreed in their final pitches to jurors Tuesday: There is no smoking gun to prove the Philadelphia city councilmember accepted nearly $67,000 in bribes disguised through a consulting contract with his wife.

But when it came to what the remaining evidence did show, the attorneys could not have disagreed more.

As Assistant U.S. Attorneys Eric Gibson and Mark Dubnoff told it, the government put on a case that, while circumstantial, left no room for doubt that Johnson had sold the powers of his office to two nonprofit executives who effectively put him on retainer.

“It’s the same way you know it’s raining,” Dubnoff said. “When someone comes inside with a raincoat and umbrella and they’re both dripping wet.”

But Johnson’s lawyer, Patrick Egan dismissed prosecutors’ theory of the case as a collection of “cherry-picked” facts strung together to create an incriminating-looking but ultimately baseless fiction.

“That was a heck of a story you heard from Mr. Dubnoff,” he said when it was his turn to address the jury. “The problem is there’s no evidence to support that story. None. Not a single shred.”

That back-and-forth came as jurors prepared to begin deliberations in a case that could end with the second corruption conviction of a Philadelphia city councilmember in less than a year.

And throughout it all, Johnson and his wife, Dawn Chavous, kept their expressions nearly inscrutable as the full day of closing arguments played out in a courtroom packed with their supporters. They declined to comment as they left the courthouse for the day, as they’ve done throughout the trial.

U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh is expected to deliver instructions to the jury on the law Wednesday morning before handing the case over to the nine men and three women set to decide the couple’s fate.

» READ MORE: A bought politician or bribery scheme invented by prosecutors? In Kenyatta Johnson’s trial, a jury will now decide.

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith

With the final word to jurors before U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh charges the panel to begin deliberations tomorrow, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric L. Gibson turned to a quote of 18th century Irish writer Jonathon Swift: “Falsehood flies. And truth comes limping after it.”

“A trial is a search for the truth,” Gibson said. “And from the very beginning, I let you know the evidence would come in a variety of ways … At the end of the case, the pieces will come together. But the glue will be your common sense.”

Calling the jurors the “guardians of truth,” Gibson reiterated the government’s allegation that Johnson was “put on a retainer” by Universal via Chavous’ consulting contract.

“It was not a question of whether they would need Mr. Johnson, it was a question of when,” Gibson said.

Accusing the defense of “[setting] up straw men and [knocking] down the straw men,” Gibson urged the jury to look at the larger picture, and how Johnson’s actions benefitted Universal and its executives. Preventing the Redevelopment Authority from reverting Universal’s blighted parcels at 13th and Bainbridge allowed the executives to represent $13.3 million in land holdings to the bank, he said. And the flow of money stopped to Chavous soon before Johnson proposed the zoning ordinance that cleared the way for Universal to redevelop the Royal Theater, Gibson said, because “the last thing any of these people want is a paper trail.”

Calling Johnson, who previously served as a state representative, and Chavous, who was chief of staff for state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams for nearly a decade, the “power couple of South Philadelphia,” Gibson noted that they both should have been steeped in ethics rules that would have avoided the conflict of interest.

“These people knew the rules, Gibson said. “And they tried to evade the rules just in time, just before Johnson walks in and introduces the bill.”

“And now,” he told the jury, “it’s time for you to hold them to account.”

The jury is expected to receive instructions from McHugh Wednesday morning, and begin attempts to reach a verdict.

— Oona Goodin-Smith

Last in the line of defense closings, jurors heard from the lawyer for Dawn Chavous, whose name and contract with Universal Companies have swirled at the center of the government’s case.

In an impassioned plea, attorney Barry Gross asked the panel “to use your common sense and ask yourself: Was Ms. Chavous acting like someone who knew this was a fake contract?”

Leaning on the government’s lack of direct evidence in the bribery allegations, the lawyer asked jurors to question when they are asked to make “massive logical leaps.”

“How many could-have-beens have you heard in this case? How many what-ifs?” he asked the jury.

At times pounding the podium and raising his voice, Gross said it was the FBI special agent, and the agent only, who deduced that Chavous’ contract with Universal was a sham, with testimony that “stands virtually alone.”

“First, you heard [the government] argue that this was a completely fake contract with sham invoices,” he said. Then, the job was dubbed “low-show,” he said, and later prosecutors acknowledged that some work was done.

“Well, which one is it?” the attorney asked.

Rather, the government in a years-long investigation, Gross said emphatically, “chose to ignore obvious information right in front of their face,” by not reaching out to various donors and and influential people with whom Chavous had connected with while under contract with Universal.

“Does that look like they’re trying to do a fair investigation, or that they’re trying to come to a conclusion?” he asked the jury.

As he’s done repeatedly during the trial, Gross went through a list of connections and tasks Chavous worked on during her Universal contract: connecting Shoprite with a Universal charter school for a culinary program, making preliminary plans for a 20th anniversary celebration, meeting with Philadelphia school officials, reaching out to donors, and texting with Islam about a school’s charter.

It wasn’t incumbent on Chavous — who Gross described as “a connector” — to produce a work product or to have achieved tangible success, the attorney said. “The point is the effort,” he said. “Ms. Chavous couldn’t guarantee results. She could only try.”

“This isn’t a case about whether she fulfilled her duties under contract,” Gross said. “This case is about whether or not Mr. Islam and Mr. Dawan bribed Kenyatta Johnson.”

Gross questioned the government’s timeline, noting that the amount of Chavous’ paychecks from Universal decreased in the summer of 2014 — before Johnson passed the zoning ordinance prosecutors allege he was bribed to do. Chavous, Gross said, was ramping down work to have a baby and work on Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams’ mayoral campaign.

“Who cuts the amount of the bribe before the official action is taken?” he asked the jury. “Why would you stop asking for the quid before you get the quo?”

In closing, Gross referenced prosecutors’ references to Universal founder and “Philadelphia Sound” producer Kenny Gamble’s hit songs, at one point playing “name that tune” with a witness.

But, “this is not a game here,” Gross solemnly told jurors in asking them to render a not-guilty verdict.

“These decisions,” he said, “will affect and change Ms. Chavous’ life forever.”

— Oona Goodin-Smith

In his final speech to the jury, Kenyatta Johnson’s lawyer scoffed at the government’s case against the city councilmember, dismissing it as little more than a few “cherry-picked” facts strung together on a timeline to made look like a crime had occurred.

Nowhere, said attorney Patrick Egan, was there direct evidence that Johnson or Chavous had agreed to do anything in exchange for bribes. And all of it, he asserted, falls apart under the slightest scrutiny.

“That was a heck of a story you heard from Mr. Dubnoff,” Egan said, referring to the prosecution’s earlier closing argument. “He tried to tie it all together. The problem is, there’s no evidence to support that story. None. Not a single shred.”

Speaking for roughly an hour, Egan posed a number of questions to the jury meant to raise doubt in their minds.

For a bribery case, he asked, where was the evidence of what Johnson and Chavous did with their ill-gotten payoffs?

“Do we have fancy jewelry, bags of money, pricey vacations? Do we have any of that?” he asked. “No. We have a guy with student loans, a used car — a Chevy Equinox — and a $300,000 mortgage on a house in South Philadelphia.”

And why, Egan added, would Johnson and his wife risk their careers to accept a relatively small sum of money for supporting Universal, an organization they’d both already backed in the past for free?

“So one day, they just said let’s chuck it all and commit a federal crime,” he said. “That’s what the government wants you to believe — they tossed it all away for $66,000 over 14 months.”

Why does the government, Egan continued, get to decide that the 40 hours of work they estimate Chavous did for her nearly $67,000 consulting contract with the nonprofit make it a “low show” job, and cover for a bribe.

“Who decides whether she did enough work?” he asked. “Is that what we’re here about? Does the FBI get to decide if Ms. Chavous did enough work?”

And from the perspective of Islam and Dawan, the allegations don’t make much sense either, Egan argued.

If, as the government has alleged, they bribed Johnson to get him to push zoning legislation through Council to help their plans to redevelop the historic Royal Theater on South Street, then why did the councilmember take such pains in 2014 to ensure Universal and its partners worked with neighbors upset with the proposal to make several changes to the designs — changes that ultimately cost the nonprofit thousands of dollars?

“Who takes a bribe and then forces the people who bribed him to spend more money to get what they want?” Egan asked. “I feel like I’m in an alternate universe.”

He argued the only possible verdict in the case was to acquit the councilmember and his wife.

“This case is so full of reasonable doubt, it’s everywhere you look in every part of the government case,” he said. “You’ve got reasonable doubt falling from the trees.”

— Jeremy Roebuck

A lawyer for Universal’s ex-CFO Shahied Dawan accused prosecutors in his closing argument of trying to convict his client through guilt by association.

“I need you to see this for the sham that it is,” attorney Thomas O. Fitzpatrick pleaded with jurors. “There is nothing on the record that shows Mr. Dawan did anything more than execute the contract [with Chavous] that Mr. Islam forwarded to him.”

In his 30-minute speech, Fitzpatrick sought to differentiate his client from Islam, Universal’s CEO, by noting that it was he who decided to hire Chavous as a consultant and he who supervised her work.

Dawan, Fitzpatrick alleged, was only indicted as a prosecutorial tactic — in hopes that he might flip on the others and cooperate with the government. Instead, he decided to take his case to trial.

“This is what it’s like to be indicted as a pressure point,” Fitzpatrick said. “You think he’s their focus. They’re not here for him.”

Of all the defendants, Dawan’s name was mentioned least throughout the four-week trial and Fitzpatrick went days at a time not bothering to question any of the witnesses. But he spoke forcefully during his closing argument, questioning several aspects of the government’s including several that won’t become issues for the jury until the second phase of the trial.

Once the panel renders its verdict on whether Islam and Dawan bribed Johnson and Chavous, jurors will be hear evidence of a whole slew of other crimes the government has alleged the two Universal executives committed including embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the nonprofit and bribing an official with the Milwaukee Public Schools.

Some of that testimony crept into the trial’s first phase. The government has put on evidence that they say shows Islam and Dawan gave themselves bonuses and salaries that had not been authorized by Universal’s board.

They’ve argued that that alleged theft — and the financial distress it caused Universal — provided the motive for bribing Johnson to help them make up the money they were losing through capitalizing on real estate assets like the Royal Theater.

But Fitzpatrick argued that nothing his client did in setting salaries and bonuses ran afoul of the nonprofit’s bylaws and that the link between that and the bribery allegations was tenuous at best.

“We have no direct evidence on the part of Shahied Dawan,” he said. “None. The government instead has time and again relied on its own suspicions and conjecture and now begs you to adopt their opinion.”

— Jeremy Roebuck

The idea that former Universal Companies CEO Rahim Islam bribed Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson to benefit the nonprofit’s real estate holdings is a scheme cooked up by the government — and not one backed by any substantial evidence, Islam’s attorney told jurors in his closing argument.

“The government has a theory,” Islam lawyer David Laigaie said. “It’s had a theory for years. It just doesn’t have the evidence to support that theory.”

Going point-by-point through prosecutors’ assertions that Islam sought to bribe Johnson through a “low-show” consulting contract with Chavous, Laigaie attempted to plant doubt in the minds of the jury, telling the panel plainly: “The government is trying to mislead you.”

Chavous’ work

According to Laigaie, Chavous was “imminently qualified” to aide Universal’s charter schools when she was hired in 2013, and to connect the company with influential contacts and donors in her circle.

Prosecutors have attempted to dispel defense offerings that Chavous did real work for the company, showing on numerous accounts where the work could be credited to someone else. But Universal, with 600 employees, Laigaie said, “was a team.” Thus, he said, Chavous may still have helped with the award of a grant or donation, even if it could be attributed to another Universal employee.

And, describing Universal as “a $60 million organization” and Islam as a sedulous executive often buried in meetings, Laigaie told the jury that the notion that Universal wouldn’t need to hire Chavous as a consultant to make political connections just because Islam could do the job himself was “just silly.”

Finances

Was Universal in financial hot water as the government purports, making a bribe to Johnson more appealing under mounting monetary stress?

No, said Laigaie, “it was in a growth mode.” He told the jury that the government had taken emails out of context, and presented them with “cherry-picked calculation[s]” to paint a picture of hardship.

While prosecutors focused on an email from ex-CFO Shahied Dawan to Islam in April 2013 in which he told the CEO of Universal’s dwindling cash reserves and difficulty in getting a bank loan, Laigaie highlighted another line in the message to suggest that the situation was not as dire.

“We have been here before, so we know that we can work our way through this,” Dawan wrote.

The Royal Theater

Redevelopment plans for the historic blighted theater took the hiring of architects, lawyers, developers and consultants, and funds and effort to gain community support — with a payoff at least four years down the line, Laigaie told the jury. Developer Ori Feibush had put in multiple offers for the building in 2012, he noted, which Islam and Dawan were aware of by May 2013. If the company had been in financial distress, it would have gone with the offer at hand rather than looking to Johnson to muscle legislation through Council for monetary gain, he said.

And, pointing to an email between developer Carl Dranoff and a government consultant about a “shaky morning” the day before the ordinance was introduced, Johnson wasn’t totally on board with the legislation at first, the lawyer said.

“Not to miss the obvious, but if we had bribed [Johnson] to propose this ordinance, we would not have been jumping through all these hoops,” Laigaie said. “Pure and simple.”

The FBI interview

Laigaie also said Islam’s willingness to be interviewed at his home, on-the-spot with government agents in March 2017 shows his client had nothing to hide. When the agents knocked on his door around 9 a.m., he invited them inside and spoke with them for an hour before saying he needed to go. Later the same day, he invited them to his Universal office, where they spoke for 45 more minutes.

“Nothing could be more indicative than his state of mind, his clear consciousness,” Laigaie said.

The FBI agent

Finally, Laigaie probed the testimony of FBI special agent Richard Haag, who spent five days on the witness stand, saying Haag “showed his lack of candor and he’s not credible.”

He accused the agent of a “one-sided presentation” and questioned Haag’s analysis that Chavous had worked a total of 40 hours over 16 months for $67,000. The agent didn’t factor in preparation, scheduling time, travel, or follow-up for meetings, nor did he include in the calculation meetings she attended for the Philadelphia Community of Leaders — which the defense has said was an arm of Universal.

“We didn’t hire Dawn Chavous to do hourly work. She didn’t track her hours. She was hired to build and establish relationships,” Laigaie said. Regardless, he said, how much she worked is “irrelevant.”

Without direct evidence of a bribery conspiracy, Laigaie said, the government’s arguments and timeline of meetings followed by raises to Chavous’ contract are merely logical fallacy.

He told the jury: “It’s like the farmer who says, ‘Every morning my rooster crows and then the sun rises. That’s one powerful rooster.’”

In addition to the bribery scheme involving Johnson and Chavous, Islam and Dawan face counts of racketeering conspiracy, tax evasion and wire fraud related to their involvement in an alleged embezzlement scheme and a separate bribery accusation involving a school district official in Milwaukee. Jurors will hear more evidence on that in the second portion of this trial.

— Oona Goodin-Smith

In their closing argument to jurors, prosecutors painted Kenyatta Johnson as a mendacious elected official willing to sell his office for bribes, his wife, Dawn Chavous, as his willing accomplice and the two nonprofit executives charged alongside them as thieves willing to pay off a city councilmember to hide the fact that they were embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from their own organization.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Dubnoff walked jurors once again through the basic outlines of the government case — that Rahim Islam, former CEO of the affordable housing and charter school nonprofit Universal Companies, and its ex-CFO Shahied Dawan had bribed Johnson in exchange for his assistance in helping them hold on to their organization’s troubled real estate assets in his district.

They funneled the money to the councilmember, the prosecutor said, through a sham consulting contract with his wife, for which she did next to no work.

“For the love of money, people will lie and they will cheat,’” Dubnoff said, quoting the 1974 O’Jays hit written by Philly music producer and Universal’s founder Kenny Gamble. “Councilman Johnson sold his office for $66,750 [and] Mr. Islam and Mr. Dawan bought a city councilman for $66,750.”

But Dubnoff focused much of his argument on connecting the dots in what has been an almost entirely circumstantial government case.

There were no wiretaps in which Johnson, Chavous, and their codefendants discussed what they wanted from each other. No witness testified about a corrupt bargain being struck between the defendants.

Instead, the government’s case relies mostly on a timeline of events — supported by business records, email exchanges, and invoices from Chavous — that, Dubnoff said Tuesday may be easy enough to explain away in isolation but build a damning case when put in context.

For instance, in June 2012, Chavous had reached out to Universal’s then-CEO Rahim Islam touting her services as a charter school consultant. Islam forwarded that email to CFO Shahied Dawan, who noted at the time that the nonprofit already had people who could do the fundraising and planning services she was offering.

But nearly a year later, Universal found itself in financial dire straits. Banks were questioning its 24-month string of revenue losses, it was forced to let go of almost all of the other consultants it had on the payroll and, on April 11, 2013, Dawan sent Islam an urgent warning, writing “We are out of cash!!”

The nonprofit, however, was sitting on two potentially lucrative properties — the historic Royal Theater on South Street and a parcel of vacant lots near 13th and Bainbridge Streets. Its efforts to develop both properties had gone nowhere in the past due to city-imposed restrictions on both. Islam, Dubnoff told the jury Tuesday, knew those plots could be the solution to Universal’s financial distress but they’d need Johnson’s help.

Four days after that email from Dawan, Islam met with Johnson, according to the government’s timeline. The very next day, Dubnoff noted, Islam met with Chavous to discuss a potentially contracting her services.

“If Mr. Islam truly felt the need to hire Ms. Chavous on her own merit,” Dubnoff said, “why did he have to meet with Councilman Johnson first? Why not go directly to Ms. Chavous?”

In less than a month, Chavous and Universal had come to terms, agreeing it would pay her a flat fee of $3,500 a month for no more than 20 hours of work each month.

Universal finally struck on a promising plan for redeveloping the Royal Theater by partnering with building Carl Dranoff in June 2013 – but one that would require the zoning on the building to be changed. Islam and Dawan opted to try to convince Johnson to push rezoning legislation through City Council and raised the issue at a June 5 fundraiser they hosted for the council member.

The next day, Dubnoff noted, Chavous sent the nonprofit executives a proposed contract with new terms: She had bumped up her rate to a $4,500 flat fee.

“You all know a deal was struck,” the prosecutors told jurors. “Mr. Islam agreed to hire Councilman Johnson’s wife. And Councilman Johnson agreed to use his office to help Universal and thereby help Mr. Islam.”

In all, prosecutors have estimated that Chavous did no more than 40 hours of work for Universal over the 14 months she was paid – an assessment that if correct would have made her hourly rate of more than $1,660 an hour.

“She was being paid $1,660 an hour from a non profit that had posted a 24-month stretch of losses, that had fired most of its other consultants, that Mr. Dawan said was out of cash,” Dubnoff said. “Who pays that kind of money? Criminals. That’s who.”

As the prosecutor finished, he turned to the defense table, pointing at each defendant and shouting “guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty” in turn.

Johnson rose from his chair, as the judge called a brief recess, with a bemused smile on his face.

— Jeremy Roebuck

Good morning! The jury is in the box, the judge is on the bench, and we’re expecting a full day of closing arguments as the court prepares to hand the case over to the jury to begin its deliberations.

But first, U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh started off the day with some news — one of the jurors was dismissed after falling ill. So far, the juror has tested negative for COVID, the judge told the rest of the panel, but he will be replaced by one of the alternates.

Johnson and Chavous, meanwhile, arrived to a courtroom packed with family members and supporters from their church earlier Tuesday morning. They’ve stayed relatively quiet throughout the trial and declined to comment to reporters in court each day, but they paused on their way in today to offer hugs to some in the courtroom gallery.

The couple faces two counts of honest services fraud, each punishable by up to 20 years in prison if prosecutors can convince the jury to deliver a guilty verdict.

Making that case — and up first with his closing argument — is Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Dubnoff.

— Jeremy Roebuck

Lawyers in the federal bribery trial of Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson will have their last chance to pitch their cases to jurors on Tuesday, after a day of defense testimony aimed at sowing doubt before they begin their deliberations.

But neither Johnson nor his wife, Dawn Chavous, opted to take the witness stand Monday in their own defense.

Instead, their attorneys and those representing their codefendants — Rahim Islam, ex-CEO of the South Philadelphia affordable housing nonprofit and charter school operator Universal Companies, and its ex-CFO, Shahied Dawan — returned to many of the themes they’d sought to impress upon the jury throughout the trial.

Chavous’ lawyer, Barry Gross, elicited testimony from two witnesses hoping to show that Chavous earned every bit of the $67,000 she was paid between 2013 and 2014 through a consulting contract that prosecutors have said was meant to disguise a payoff to her husband.

And lawyers for Johnson and Islam sought to lead jurors to the question of whether Johnson was acting like a bribed man.

» READ MORE: Closing arguments set for Tuesday in Kenyatta Johnson’s federal bribery trial

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith

Kenyatta Johnson, 48, a three-term incumbent on Philadelphia City Council, represents parts of Center City, Southwest, and his native South Philadelphia. Before he was elected to Council in 2012, he served for three years as state representative.

Dawn Chavous, 42, is the founder and president of her own consulting firm, a charter school lobbyist, political consultant, and founder of the Sky Community Partners nonprofit, which helps to distribute state scholarships to public and private schools outside students’ home districts.

She has longstanding ties to State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, for whom she worked for nearly a decade, rising in his office from aide to chief of staff. Eventually, she ran his 2010 gubernatorial campaign. It was while working in Williams’ office that she met Johnson, who was serving as an aide to the senator at the time. They married in 2012.

Prosecutors say she did “little, if any, discernible work” — an estimated 30-40 hours total over a 16-month span — for the money she received consulting with Universal.

» READ MORE: Prosecutors put Kenyatta Johnson’s finances under a microscope at his federal bribery trial

— Oona Goodin-Smith and Jeremy Roebuck

Prosecutors say Kenyatta Johnson used his position in 2013 and 2014 to protect real estate holdings of Universal Companies, a South Philadelphia community development and charter schools nonprofit founded by legendary music producer Kenny Gamble. In exchange, they say, Johnson took bribes of more than $66,750 in the form of a consulting job for his wife, Dawn Chavous.

The couple each face two counts of honest services fraud, a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Abdur Rahim Islam and Shahied Dawan, two Universal Companies executives accused of bribing Johnson and Chavous, face the majority of charges, including counts of racketeering conspiracy, tax evasion, and wire fraud.

Johnson and Chavous have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Their attorneys argue that there is no evidence that Chavous’ contract with Universal had anything to do with Johnson’s votes on matters involving Universal’s landholdings.

Should he be convicted, Kenyatta Johnson, like Bobby Henon, would be forced to give up his seat on the Philadelphia City Council, 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.

Johnson and Dawn Chavous would also be facing up to 20 years in prison on each of the two counts of honest services fraud with which he is charged.

Attorneys expect the first portion of the trial involving Johnson, Chavous, Islam and Dawan to last around three weeks, and the second section — focused only on Islam and Dawan — to last a few additional days.

— Oona Goodin-Smith and Jeremy Roebuck