Kenyatta Johnson’s bribery retrial nears its end as a new jury attempts to deliver a verdict

For the second time in less than a year, prosecutors on Wednesday urged a federal jury to convict Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson on bribery charges, calling him “a criminal” who sold his office in exchange for bribes.

Defense lawyers — as they, too, had done before — shot back in their closing pitches to the panel, dismissing the accusations as conjecture based on “cherry-picked evidence.”

Little had changed in the six months since both sides failed to persuade a previous group of jurors to deliver a unanimous verdict in their favor — including, in some cases, whole passages of the attorneys’ closing arguments repeated Wednesday word for word from the first trial in April.

But as the retrial of Johnson, his wife, Dawn Chavous, and the two nonprofit executives charged with paying them off roared toward its conclusion, both sides hoped that this time would settle the matter for good.

“We don’t catch every corrupt politician, but we caught this one,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Dubnoff said, gesticulating at Johnson from across the courtroom.

The three-term Democrat from Point Breeze responded by cracking a subtle smile.

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

To hear Dubnoff and cocounsel Eric L. Gibson tell it, the government’s case left no room for doubt 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 Council member, the prosecutor said, through a sham consulting contract with Chavous, for which she did next to no work and received nearly $70,000 in 2013 and 2014.

“For the love of money, people will lie, and they will cheat,” said Dubnoff, 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. Mr. Islam and Mr. Dawan bought a city councilman for $66,750.”

Thomas O. Fitzpatrick, the lawyer for Dawan, came armed with song lyrics of his own as he argued that prosecutors’ largely circumstantial case just didn’t add up.

“I’m reminded of a song by Billy Preston,” he said. “Nothing from nothing means nothing.” Or as Barry Gross, lawyer for Chavous, put it later: “They haven’t produced any evidence of a bribe.”

That exchange came as U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh prepared to deliver instructions to the jury on the law Thursday morning before handing the case over to the group tasked with deciding the couple’s fate.

Throughout the three-week trial prosecutors constructed their case largely around business records, invoices, bank statements, and emails from a roughly 16-month period between 2013 and 2014.

There were no wiretaps in which Johnson, Chavous, Islam, or Dawan discussed what they sought from one another. No witness who testified could say for certain that the foursome had struck a corrupt bargain.

Still, the government contended Wednesday that the evidence — though circumstantial — was more than enough to secure a guilty verdict and spent most of its closing argument connecting the dots of a timeline that had been presented in isolated moments throughout the trial.

In June 2012, Dubnoff noted, Chavous — a charter school advocate and politically connected consultant — had reached out to Universal Companies offering her services, but at the time Dawan told Islam they had no use for her because the organization already had people who could do the fund-raising and marketing services she was offering.

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

The nonprofit 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 — that could help it out of its financial bind.

But previous failed efforts to develop both had shown Islam that if new development plans were to get off the ground, they would need their Council member’s help.

Days after that email from Dawan, Islam met with Johnson. He set up a meeting with Chavous the very next day.

And while defense lawyers were quick to point out that the government couldn’t say for certain what was discussed in either meeting, Universal offered Chavous her consulting contract less than a month later.

Initially, that contract stipulated she would be paid $3,500 a month — a figure she raised by a thousand dollars a day after a fund-raiser for her husband in which Islam approached the Council member seeking his help with a zoning change needed for Universal’s plans to redevelop the Royal Theater.

Johnson would eventually push the requested zoning bill through Council and again weigh in against city efforts to seize Universal’s lots at 13th and Bainbridge after the nonprofit failed to live up to the terms of a sales agreement requiring it to develop the property.

But the defense lawyers shot back in court Wednesday, each posing questions aimed at exposing the holes they saw in the government’s case

Dubnoff and Gibson had spent much of the trial characterizing Chavous’ contract with Universal as a sham meant to funnel money to her husband and alleged she did less than 40 hours of work for the $66,750 she was paid — an assessment that would put her hourly rate at more than $1,660 an hour.

But Gross, Chavous’ lawyer, balked, asking who were they to decide how much his client deserved to be compensated for the work that she did. He highlighted introductions she’d made for Universal to a network of wealthy charter school backers, tours she’d set up, and meetings she’d attended on Universal’s behalf.

“The government is trying to devalue Mrs. Chavous,” he said. “They’ve tried to denigrate her from the start.”

Johnson’s lawyer, Patrick Egan, noted that the Council member had supported Universal and the idea of redeveloping the Royal Theater years before the alleged bribery scheme.

“Why on earth would it be necessary to offer Kenyatta Johnson a bribe to do something that anyone with two eyes, two ears, and a brain could know he was going to do from the start?” he asked.

If Johnson’s support for the Royal Theater rezoning bill truly had been bought, Islam lawyer David Laigaie posited, why had the Council member conditioned his backing of the Royal redevelopment project on Universal’s working with neighbors opposed to the proposal to make changes to the design that cost thousands of dollars in extra work?

“If we did bribe Kenyatta Johnson to support the zoning change,” he asked, “why in the world did we have to work so hard to get it passed?”

Those questions will be left with the jurors Thursday. It remains to be seen whether this time they’ll agree on the answers.