D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. was indicted by a federal grand jury Friday on a bribery charge after he was caught on video last month taking lump sums of money from a local business owner.
White, who has represented Ward 8 on the D.C. Council since 2016, was the chairman of the Committee on Recreation, Libraries and Youth Affairs that oversaw some of the District’s violence-interruption efforts. According to court documents, White agreed to accept $156,000 in cash payments from a business owner in exchange for help in renewing their companies’ violence-interruption contracts with the D.C. government.
In a June meeting in the company owner’s car outside White’s apartment building in Southeast D.C., the company owner wanted to know if the contracts would be extended and offered to pay $15,000 in cash for the information, according to the documents.
White replied, “What you need me to do, man? I don’t wanna feel like you gotta gimme something to get something. We better than that,” according to court documents. However, White still put the envelope containing the money into his jacket pocket.
The two contracts between the unnamed business owner and the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services were valued at $5.2 million. The agreed upon payments to White represented about 3% of the total contract value, prosecutors said.
White remains on the ballot for November, facing Republican Nate Derenge and Democrat Markus Batchelor, a Ward 8 community leader who told WTOP last month he’s launching a write-in campaign for the council seat. Once the D.C. Council returns to work Sept. 17, Chairman Phil Mendelson said he plans to remove White from the Committee on Recreation, Libraries and Youth Affairs.
White is set to return to court Sept. 12 for an arraignment hearing.
WTOP’s Jack Moore contributed to this report.
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