Daily News | Kenyatta Johnson and his wife, Dawn Chavous, acquitted at federal bribery trial
All the while, Universal was paying Chavous — a charter schools advocate, Sen. Williams’ former chief of staff, and a politically connected consultant in her own right — under a contract that Johnson had failed to disclose.
Prosecutors rejected the notion that Johnson’s lapse could be chalked up to a mere mistake and described it instead as strong evidence that he was hiding his misdeeds.— which was rife with wiretapped recordings that ultimately helped secure their convictions — prosecutors presented little direct evidence against Johnson, relying instead on a largely circumstantial series of e-mails, business records, bank statements and invoices that they argued left little doubt that bribery had occurred.
As for Johnson, his attorney, Patrick Egan, argued that it made no sense that Universal would have had to bribe the councilmember to earn his support. He’d built his political career on supporting affordable housing and expanding access to good schools in his district, Egan said. And he’d conditioned his support for the Royal Theater rezoning bill on the nonprofit working to ameliorate the concerns of neighbors who were opposed to the proposed design.
“I don’t know anybody who bribes someone when they don’t have to,” Egan said. “Clearly, they didn’t need to pay him to get him to support him. They had the same missions.”
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