Well before the start of Ward 8 D.C. Councilmember Trayon White, Sr.’s federal bribery trial, some D.C. residents, including one who reported to jury duty, questioned whether the accused can truly get a fair shake in the court of law.
That resident, designated as Juror 1579, didn’t make the cut to participate in what’s considered one of the District’s highest profile trials this year. That’s because, on their way to elimination, they stoked anxiety among prosecutors.
“There are many flaws in the system. It’s hard to fix,” Juror 1579 told U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras on the second and final day of jury selection. “I did research on police misconduct [where] people are found guilty [but did] not commit the crime.”
On the afternoon of Sept. 14, Juror 1579, a bespeckled millennial white woman, cited her experiences as an employee in the Public Defender Service and, before that, a college student when grilled about the controversial responses to her questionnaire. During her exchange with the prosecution and defense, Juror 1579 didn’t exude confidence about whether she would disregard her findings about police misconduct while serving on the jury.
She even, at one point, pondered whether it was possible for someone to do so.
Though Contreras thwarted federal prosecutors’ initial attempt to strike Juror 1579 from the jury pool, the juror ultimately didn’t make it to the final round, perhaps due to prosecutors’ later use of a peremptory challenge, which allows them to eliminate potential jurors for any non-discriminatory reason, per the Batson Rule. During the latter part of jury selection, Contreras mediated a private discussion between the prosecution and defense, during which each side used six peremptory challenges to bring the pool down from 32 to 14.
Hours earlier, Contreras reminded Juror 1579, and other potential jurors, about their responsibility should they be chosen to deliberate during the two-week trial. In his exchange with Juror 1579, however, Contreras went a bit further.
“I was trying to figure out how effective you can be to put those… ideas to the side,” Contreras asked Juror 1579.
Day One: The Newly Disclosed Familial Relationship Few Knew About
On the morning of Sept. 15, the prosecution and defense made opening statements before a jury of 14, the racial and gender composition of which is: one Latina, three Black women and two Black men, five white women and five white men.
“Once you got me… if you lock eyes and get your understanding, I get to work,” prosecutor John Crabb told jurors on the morning of Sept. 15, in reference to what White, on an FBI video recording, told confidential human source Allieu Kamara, a business owner that the defense would later identify as White’s brother-in-law.
Throughout his opening statement, Crabb repeated those very words as what he called proof that White knowingly used his political office in an attempt to pressure employees in the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE) and D.C. Department of Youth and Rehabilitative Services (DYRS) to award $5.2 million in contracts to two of Kamara’s companies.
Video footage captured between June 26, 2024 and July 18, 2024 shows White entering Kamara’s car before the two men speak about Kamara’s desire to get his government contracts renewed and later inquiring about White’s meetings with then-interim ONSE Director Kwelli D. Sneed and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah.
Earlier in the day, Nicole Streeter, the D.C. Council’s general counsel of nearly nine years and a government witness, took to the stand, identified White taking an oath of office in a 2021 video, and confirmed documentation that he took training about the council’s code of conduct.
Streeter was the first of several government witnesses who are expected to take the stand, including Snell, Appiah, and former D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine.
Later, Crabb presented a document he said outlined an arrangement through which White would receive 3% of the aforementioned amount, or $526,000, if the alleged scheme proved successful. Later, on Sept. 15, FBI Special Agent Matthew Gano took the stand and, with the aid of photo evidence, told prosecutors that Kamara gave White a total of $35,000 in cash over the course of five interactions, most of which happened in Kamara’s car parked near White’s Navy Yard condo.
“In that car, Mr. White accepted money,” Gano told White’s defense attorney Bruce H. Searby during cross examination.
By the time of the video footage, the FBI had been investigating White for a year, as recounted by Gano. Per the nearly two hours of tape that the prosecution played on the afternoon of Sept. 15, White alluded to meetings with Sneed and Appiah, and what prosecution described as strategies to help make Kamara’s case to the two female officials, one of whom White said raised concerns about how Life Deeds, Kamara’s company, performed in Wards 1 and 4.
The two men, Gano said, also visited White’s mentor, former U.S. shadow representative for D.C. Charles Moreland for greater exploration of how to enter health care contracting. The Informer unsuccessfully attempted to establish contact with Moreland.
Much of White’s dialogue with Kamara during those five recorded meetings focused on topics unrelated to their alleged arrangement. White spoke about his efforts to quell conflict in D.C. Jail and secure employment for at least one of Kamara’s employees whose hours were reduced. He also reflected on his therapy appointments and desire to focus more on building a nuclear family, his bouts with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on the issue of violence, as well as attempts to secure health care contracting, purchase land in North Carolina, and launch a federal contracting venture with a female colleague.
During the moments where White strays into these other topics, Kamara can be heard attempting to bring the conversation back to what they can do together, as it relates to government contracts and getting more money for the council member.
“Let us focus on DYRS and the ladies [Sneed and Appiah],” Kamara could be heard saying to White in the video footage captured on Aug. 18, 2024.
As captured on the footage shown in Courtroom 23 of the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Court House, FBI agents arrest White as he exits Kamara’s car moments later that afternoon. In the aftermath of that arrest, White lost his chairmanship of the D.C. Council’s Committee on Recreation, Libraries, and Youth Affairs. Months later, the D.C. Council expelled him from the legislative body. He later won back his seat in a special election though he no longer oversees any council committees.
For Ward 1 resident and White’s confidante Edward James Ford III, the legislator’s arrest and the trial are part of a larger plot to destroy authentic Black male political leadership.
“The council member’s job is to facilitate relationships and make things easier for the residents of the District of Columbia,” Ford told The Informer. “If Trayon White has more [of an] activist spirit than the other council members, anybody in D.C. is gonna go to him when they want some assistance dealing with the government because he’s more approachable.”
Ford counted among the more than a dozen White supporters who sat in the court gallery on Sept. 15 as the defense, in their opening statement, countered the prosecution’s primary argument and questioned the legitimacy of their evidence. Defense attorney Warren G. Kohlman said White was doing nothing more than fulfilling his duties as a council member when he addressed the concerns of Kamara, who he said had given White money throughout the years without cause.
In speaking about Kamara, Kohlman described him as a “snitch” who threw White under the bus when nabbed for pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program fraud. As later explained by Gano, Kamara, once brought in for questioning by the FBI, mentioned White and Bowser, along with that of other government officials, as recipients of bribes.
For Searby, the very nature of how the events unfolded cast doubt on what Kamara, according to Gano, described as the Ward 8 council member’s attempt to discourage then D.C. Attorney General Racine’s investigation into Kamara’s company Life Deeds in 2019.
Toward the end of the Sept. 15 court proceedings, Gano, while on the stand, responded to Searby’s inquiries about the FBI’s evidence of White and Kamara’s previous arrangement. He also faced questions about whether the FBI inquired more deeply about the two men’s relationship.
“There are no specific transactions I can point to,” Gano told Searby about the alleged 2019 situation.
Moments earlier, while interacting with Searby, Gano explained the purpose of the sting. “We asked Kamara to revive the relationship,” Gano said.
Earlier in the day, Ford raised suspicion about what he called prosecutors’ omission of White and Kamara’s familial ties. He said that context thwarts any attempt to cast the Ward 8 council member in a negative light.
“Allieu was married to Trayon’s sister, so that’s his brother-in-law, and so for them to exchange money wouldn’t be nothing out of the ordinary,” Ford told The Informer. “But if you don’t say that that’s his brother-in-law and you say he’s a business owner and he’s trying to get a contract, you’re coming with propaganda and you’re twisting it and you’re manipulating people.”
Examining the Hoops and Hurdles for Potential Jurors
White’s two-week trial comes after months of delays, changes to his legal team, and Contreras’ recent granting of a motion by White’s legal team to exclude from court proceedings portions of the D.C. Code of Conduct, the basis of his council expulsion. It’s also taking place after prosecutors earlier this month accused White of jury tampering after he, in an Instagram video, encouraged D.C. residents living east of the Anacostia River to perform their civic duty.
As later reported by WJLA-TV’s Phylicia Ashley, White focused his energy on the final day of jury selection curating a jury with as many Black people as possible. The racial and gender make-up notwithstanding, Qiana L. Johnson said that any jury is obligated to focus on the facts of the case, and nothing else.
“No matter what role you’ve played in the criminal legal system, whether you are a victim, you have a family member [who] was a victim, or a lawyer or a police officer, is to understand that all cases are not the same,” Johnson told The Informer. “You have to be able to be unbiased by that particular experience and say that you would look at the case that was presented before you and only solely identify guilt or innocence based on the actual evidence before you in this particular case.”
(Roy Lewis/The Washington Informer)
Johnson, Democratic nominee for the Prince George’s County clerk seat, co-founded Black-led community defense hub Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, under which she facilitated Courtwatch DC. Through that program, Johnson trains community members to observe, document, and ensure accountability during local court proceedings. On Sept. 14, she counted among several people who sat in the courtroom gallery, including: Nee Nee Taylor of Harriet’s Wildest Dreams; Al-Malik Farrakhan of Cease Fire Don’t Smoke the Brothers and Sisters; Ward 8 D.C. Council office staffers and advisory neighborhood commissioners Robin McKinney and Fria Moore; and Eyone Williams of D.C. Blacks.
Throughout much of that day, the prosecution and defense interviewed jurors whose family and friends were defendants in other trials, including those dealing with money, as well as those whose family members were victims of crime. Other jurors, like a white man designated as Juror 1026, exhibited deep familiarity with the local socioeconomic landscape, telling attorneys that his wife served as an educator in Ward 8 schools and participated in a council campaign.
In his exchange with attorneys, Juror 1026 defended his criticism of local policy.
“In some cases,” Juror 1026 said, “with youth crime [there’s a] revolving door where youth going for offenses see leniency .. and even the D.C. Council backed it.”
Juror 2127, a balding white man with glasses who’s married to a Montgomery County, Maryland business owner, spoke about his exposure to the media accounts about White’s alleged acceptance of bribes. He raised eyebrows among the defense for his use of the word “jury tampering,” as well as a slight hesitation to affirm his ability to be non-biased.
“Got caught on tape accepting bribes, seems clear cut to me,” Juror 2127 said during his exchange with Contreras.
Contreras and Juror 2127 would more deeply explore the latter’s ability to honor jury instructions after Juror 2127 questioned the manner in which the federal government collected evidence against White.
“If you use false pretenses to get people to enact crimes, then that raises moral questions,” Juror 2127 said on Sept. 14.
Earlier in the day, prosecutors unsuccessfully attempted to strike Juror 1389, a Black female Gen-Xer, from the jury pool after Juror 1389 revealed that she maintains contact with the federal government as her daughter awaits sentencing for kidnapping.
Earlier in her interview with attorneys, Juror 1389 delved into other experiences her family has had with the legal system. “My baby father went to court a couple years ago for driving without a license under the influence and they gave him five years,” she said.
As Johnson prepares to conduct her final training, scheduled to take place on Sept. 29 at the Black Workers and Wellness Center in Anacostia in collaboration with Free DC, she continues to advocate for incentives that would encourage the economically disadvantaged to accept the responsibility of jury duty.
She cited a program in Washington state that pays jurors who miss work to perform their civic duty so they don’t lose weeks of income.
“Most individuals can’t afford to be on juries,” Johnson said, “whether they have to pick their kid up, whether they’re a caregiver for their parent, or whether or not they’re an Uber or Lyft driver that depends on certain hours of the day to go out and make their money.”
The prosecution and defense saw several instances on Sept. 14 where potential jurors pointed to obligations that precluded them from serving. Juror 1550, a Latina who works in a Virginia-based child care center, said she had upcoming classroom observations and a recurring appointment to pick up her mother.
Juror 1682, a Black male D.C. government employee and sibling of a one-time legislative director in former D.C. council member Kenyan McDuffie’s office, eventually delved into his biases about government corruption after explaining that he couldn’t serve as a juror while in the middle of a major web development project.
Juror 1820, a Black woman who drives Lyft, told the prosecution and defense that, if chosen to perform jury duty, she would have to make up her hours after court wraps up for the day. A white woman and business owner known as Juror 1199 explained that, after serving on a jury last year, she couldn’t afford to take on another trial, especially since one of her employees is in the middle of an 18-month grand jury proceeding.
For one Asian social worker who didn’t make the final cut due to his work obligations, time is money.
“The amount of extra billable hours turns into a bonus,” the man, known as Juror 2210, told Contreras on Sept. 14. “I was unaware that my billable hours would be wiped out. Thousands of dollars of anticipated income.”
