Federal bribery trial for DC Council member ends in mistrial

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: The Strobridge Litho. Co., Cincinnati & New York. · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

A federal judge declared a mistrial Monday in the bribery case against D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. after jurors deadlocked despite hidden camera footage showing White accepting roughly $156,000 from an FBI informant. Prosecutors say the payments were part of a quid pro quo tied to a homeless services contractor's government business worth more than $5 million.

White's defense argued the informant, his brother-in-law who had already pleaded guilty to taking a separate $230,000 bribe, entrapped him and that White never actually followed through on any official favors. Prosecutors countered that 'knowing winks and nods' were enough to prove criminal intent, pointing to a coded exchange with a city safety official.

The case leaves White, who was expelled from the council after his indictment and then won a special election back into the same seat by 252 votes, in continued limbo. Federal prosecutors can still choose to retry him before a new jury.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Getting caught on camera handing over envelopes of cash and still walking out with a hung jury takes a special kind of luck, or a special kind of jury instruction problem. The voters already sent him back once with the indictment hanging over him, so it's hard to say a retrial changes much about how Ward 8 feels. Justice here isn't moving fast, but at $156,000 an episode, somebody's getting their money's worth out of the delay.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Mining by Moonlight · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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