Jury Deliberating Again In City Hall Corruption Case
The jury in the federal trial of Chris Wright, former chief of staff for City Councilman Jack Kelly, resumed deliberations about an hour ago.
The jury in the federal trial of Chris Wright, former chief of staff for City Councilman Jack Kelly, resumed deliberations about an hour ago. The jury, which received the case from the judge yesterday, is considering whether Kelly's one-time campaign treasurer, Andy Teitelman, and developers Hardeep and Ravinder Chawla bribed Wright with $1,000, a rent-free apartment near Rittenhouse Square and free legal services in exchange for help with city agencies and officials.
Defense attorneys say the four men are close friends who acted to help Wright after he relapsed into a drinking problem during a bitter divorce. Prosecutors say Wright cashed in on his City Hall post and the potential for future real estate commissions with the Chawla brothers.
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The jury of six men and six women in this case includes four people from Philadelphia, four from Chester County and one each from Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks and Northampton counties. One juror is a city employee, one is a former employee of the Philadelphia Police Department, and two jurors have relatives who work in law enforcement. Two of the jurors have served on juries before. One juror was a defendant in a criminal case more than four decades ago.
The jury, which had several questions for U.S. District Justice Eduardo Robreno yesterday, has been very quiet it its work today. They asked for lunch at 12:15 p.m. and are due to get back to deliberations by 1:30 p.m. Robreno has kept himself busy today hearing an international custody dispute, with the father from Cyprus and the mother from Siberia. Defense attorneys and reporters have been following that hearing while waiting for the jury.
The jury came back from lunch with a question about how they should vote on a verdict for the 14 counts under consideration for the four defendants. They asked Robreno in a note whether they need to vote based on the indictment, from back in August, or from the evidence presented during the trial. Prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that Robreno should tell the jury to consider all the evidence and apply it using the instructions he provided on Friday and yesterday. That's what Robreno is doing now.
The jury just informed the judge's clerk that they would like to break for the day. Robreno just sent them home with an order to return at 9 a.m. tomorrow for day three of deliberations.
While Hardeep Chawla waited to hear his fate from the jury in this case, another federal matter had to be pushed off to a later date. Chawla pleaded guilty in 2006 to defrauding the federal government on two leases for buildings in Northeast Philadelphia. He was due to have a hearing today, where a judge would consider "certain violations which may warrant revocation of your supervised release," according to a court order. That hearing was pushed until Feb. 27.