Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

Judge makes an unusual visit to the jury room as deliberations drag on in Kenyatta Johnson’s bribery trial

Signs of difficulties in the jury room continued to mount Tuesday as deliberations continued into a fourth day. But with no verdict reached, the judge ordered the panel to return Wednesday.

Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson, center, and his wife, Dawn Chavous, leave the federal courthouse in Center City in October.
Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson, center, and his wife, Dawn Chavous, leave the federal courthouse in Center City in October.Read moreJessica Griffin / Staff Photographer

The closed-door conversations between lawyers and the judge overseeing Kenyatta Johnson’s federal bribery retrial continued Tuesday as the jury deliberating the Philadelphia City Council member’s fate ended a fourth day of deliberations without a verdict.

The signs of potential difficulties in the jury room that emerged Monday continued, as the panel of eight women and four men sent several notes to U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh throughout the day.

» READ MORE: Signs of difficulty emerge as Kenyatta Johnson jury ends third day of deliberations without a verdict

None of the messages was read in open court, but they prompted a flurry of unusual activity.

At one point, the judge and attorneys called five members of the panel one-by-one to McHugh’s chambers to question them individually. Moments later, the judge emerged, entered the jury room himself for several minutes and eventually left, offering no indication of what prompted his unusual visit.

McHugh remained cloistered in his chambers with attorneys from both sides for the rest of the afternoon, dismissing jurors after seven hours of deliberations with orders to return Wednesday morning.

None of the attorneys involved in the case agreed to discuss the behind-the-scenes activity once they finally emerged to leave the courthouse at the end of the day.

As of Tuesday evening, the jury’s deliberations had stretched over 23 hours across four days — roughly the same amount of time as jurors in Johnson’s first trial in April took before reporting they were hopelessly deadlocked and prompting McHugh to declare a mistrial.

» READ MORE: Inside the Kenyatta Johnson jury room: Juror details deadlocked deliberations in bribery case

Johnson, a three-term Democrat from Point Breeze, is accused of accepting nearly $67,000 in bribes from two former nonprofit executives seeking his aid to hold on to troubled real estate assets in his district.

Prosecutors allege the money was funneled through a series of sham consulting contracts the executives signed with the Council member’s wife, Dawn Chavous, in 2013 and 2014.

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

Johnson, 49, and Chavous, 42, have denied any wrongdoing.

If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison on each of the two counts of honest services fraud with which they are charged.