Jurors end first day of deliberations without a verdict in Kenyatta Johnson bribery trial

Jurors began their deliberations Wednesday in the federal bribery trial of Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson and his wife, Dawn Chavous, but broke for the day after roughly five hours of discussion without reaching a verdict.

U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh handed the case to the panel of eight men and four women after spending the morning instructing them on the relevant law.

He sent them back for their first opportunity to discuss the case after more than three weeks of trial, urging them to treat each other with courtesy and not hesitate to allow their minds to be changed.

Now, the case, he told them, “is your providence and yours alone.”

The panel spent most of the afternoon cloistered, occasionally sending requests to the judge to see certain pieces of evidence including emails, invoices and other exhibits presented by both sides during the trial.

Johnson and Chavous, meanwhile, passed the time milling around the courtroom in relative silence, pausing occasionally to chat with a sizable crowd of supporters who have shown up throughout the trial.

They avoided questions from reporters, as they have done throughout the proceedings, as they left the courthouse at the end of the day.

» READ MORE: Jurors in Kenyatta Johnson’s bribery trial end first day of deliberations without a verdict

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith

Jurors have signaled they don’t intend to reach a verdict Wednesday.

In a note sent to the court, the jurors asked to end their deliberations at 4:30 p.m. and return Thursday at 9:30 for a second day of discussions.

— Jeremy Roebuck

Roughly an hour since the jury began their discussions, they’ve emerged with their first question — a request to review a significant portion of the exhibits introduced throughout the trial.

Lawyers from both sides have agreed to send back to them emails presented throughout the trials, excerpts of grand jury testimony introduced as evidence, the bylaws of Universal Companies, and invoices Dawn Chavous submitted to Universal as part of her contract.

— Jeremy Roebuck

The fates of Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson and Dawn Chavous now rest in the hands of the jury.

After an hour of instruction from U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh, the eight men and four women selected from a nine-county swath across eastern Pennsylvania have begun closed-door deliberations in attempts to reach a unanimous verdict.

Two alternate jurors are on standby.

“Guilt or innocence is personal and individual,” McHugh told the jury, who will decide the verdicts of each of the four defendants — all of whom face two counts of honest services wire fraud.

In instructing the jurors, McHugh noted that the alleged bribe could have been presented as a one-time act or stream of benefits, and none of the parties had to explicitly state that the alleged benefits — in this case, Chavous’ contract with Universal — were in return for an official action.

The government has offered jurors circumstantial evidence in the case, meaning that there is no smoking gun to prove their allegation that Johnson accepted nearly $67,000 in bribes disguised as a consulting contract to Chavous. Defense attorneys have attempted to poke holes in the matter, accusing prosecutors of forcing the jury to make logical leaps.

The jury, McHugh said, is not required to find the alleged bribe was the sole reason for Johnson’s actions, just that he accepted the payments with the intent to be influenced. Johnson’s attorneys have argued that he did not need a bribe to support Universal’s developments in his second district.

The two honest services wire fraud counts both center on events in October 2014: an email on Oct. 16 from Dawan to Islam forwarding a draft of the Royal Theater zoning ordinance ahead of Islam’s meeting with the councilmember; and a $17,250 check from Universal to Dawn Chavous from Oct. 22. Prosecutors allege Chavous’ final consulting check served as a hidden kickback to Johnson for pushing the zoning ordinance.

In parting, the judge encouraged jurors to treat each other with courtesy and respect, listen carefully and respectfully to their fellow jurors, keep and open mind, and not hesitate to allow their minds to be changed.

Now, he said, the case “is your providence and yours alone.”

— Oona Goodin-Smith

Good morning from the Philadelphia federal courthouse, where the judge is on the bench and the jury is in the box — ready for U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh to begin instructing jurors on the law to begin deliberating in the bribery trial of Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson.

After McHugh provides instructions to the jury, the case will go to the 12 people set to decide the fates of Johnson, his spouse Dawn Chavous, and two former Universal Companies executives. Yesterday, one juror missed closing arguments due to non-COVID illness, and was replaced by an alternate.

All four defendants face two counts of honest services wire fraud.

“This is your job and your job alone,” McHugh told jurors as he began instructions. “It’s your responsibility to decide the case.”

— Oona Goodin-Smith

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 Council member 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.”

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.”

» 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

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.

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