PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Defense attorneys finally got a chance to cross-examine the lead FBI agent in the bribery case against Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson on Tuesday, the agent’s third day on the stand.
Prosecutors spent most of the day walking Agent Richard Haag through a mountain of documents to create a picture of Johnson and his wife, Dawn Chavous, as struggling financially in 2014, with high credit card balances, two mortgages, a car payment and hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees, all while preparing for the birth of their first child.
The government alleges that Johnson took a bribe from the housing and charter school nonprofit Universal Companies via a consulting contract between Chavous and Universal.
Haag’s earlier testimony painted Universal as equally financially desperate, hoping to sell property it owned in Johnson’s district. Prosecutors allege Johnson sponsored a zoning change for the property in exchange for Chavous’ contract.
Johnson’s attorney, Pat Egan, began to recast the picture on cross-examination. Using Universal’s records, he portrayed its cash flow problems as temporary and resolved within months. He also pushed back on Haag’s contention that Chavous had done little work for her contract.
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Among the unusual investigative steps Haag said he took was duplicating work Chavous had charged for under her contract with Universal to see how long it took. On cross-examination, Egan seemed less than impressed.
“You had a lot of resources to conduct your investigation,” he said to Haag, pointing to subpoenas, search warrants, surveillance, 150 interviews and more than 2 million documents, but “what you brought to this courtroom is five checks,” referring to the five payments to Chavous that constitute the alleged bribe.
Court adjourned for the day as Egan was about to begin reviewing testimony on the couple’s finances. That line of questioning is set to resume Wednesday.
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