PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The federal bribery trial against City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson, his wife and two executives for Southwest Philadelphia charter schools and redevelopments connected to musician Kenny Gamble has started for the second time.
In their opening statements, prosecutor Eric Gibson said Johnson and his wife Dawn Chavous partnered up to rake in about $67,000 from Universal Charter Schools, which was started by Gamble who is not charged in this case.
In exchange, they say, Johnson swayed City Hall to pass zoning bills that would benefit Universal Charter redevelopment projects.
Federal officials say Rahim Islam and Shaheid Dawan, who worked for the charter experiencing financial losses at the time, sought a consulting contract with Chavous as her husband worked on zoning deals to line their pockets.
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Prosecutors said they have emails, texts, payments, and insider paperwork to prove it, flashing images of some of those items on a screen. They said it will show direct evidence like this as “windows into time” to what they say is a quid pro quo corruption scheme, and that Johnson sold his office to do so.
But each of the defendant’s attorneys noted how this is a “duct tape and glue” investigation to go after a hard-working foursome trying to help their communities.
“There’s so much reasonable doubt, you don’t believe your eyes,” Johnson’s attorney said.
His attorney stated that Chavous wasn’t “picked up at a Wendy’s,” but had established herself as a premier consultant to turn to because of her education and experience working with charter schools and government. He added that both Johnson and Chavous don’t have a luxury lifestyle, and live in a “regular house in South Philly.”
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They added that Johnson had been working with Universal for years both before and after the alleged bribery, and that he worked with them because it’s in his district, adding: “Why would they bribe someone you don’t need to?”
This second trial is expected to last several weeks. The first trial took about four weeks before it went to the jury, with prosecutors calling 20 witnesses and submitting thousands of evidentiary documents. The jury deliberated for nearly a week before it failed to reach a unanimous verdict and a mistrial was declared.
The six-year investigation into Johnson, Chavous, Rahim Islam and Shaheid Dawan included 150 interviews. A grand jury issued an indictment in January 2020, but the pandemic led to a delay for the first trial until this past March.