The lead attorney for Trayon White Sr. said Tuesday that a jury voted 9-3 to acquit the D.C. councilmember of bribery, suggesting prosecutors could face an uphill climb in bringing the case back for a second try.
On Tuesday, one day after a judge declared a mistrial in the case, White (D-Ward 8), posted a message on social media highlighting the jury vote, proclaiming “God is the greatest” and thanking his attorneys.
Gary Kohlman, one of White’s attorneys, confirmed the 9-3 split in an interview Tuesday.
“In light of the split with the jury, overwhelmingly in Mr. White’s favor, we are hopeful that the government will conclude that a retrial makes no sense,” he said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
White was arrested in 2024 for accepting $35,000 from a D.C. government contractor during meetings the pair had that year in 2024. In return for the cash, prosecutors said, White agreed to pressure D.C. officials to renew contracts worth millions of dollars that companies of Allieu Kamara — who was working as an undercover FBI informant — had previously obtained for violence-interruption services.
The councilmember, who was first elected in 2016 to represent the city’s poorest ward, has long maintained his innocence. At trial, his attorneys said he was framed by Kamara, who had previously donated to White’s campaigns.
In weighing a single count of bribery, jurors deliberated for more than three days, but ultimately said it could not reach a unanimous decision on White’s innocence or guilt. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras declared a mistrial Monday morning after the jury sent a final note saying further discussions had only “cemented” their views.
The mistrial was another setback for U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who has struggled to obtain convictions of some defendants charged with federal crimes.
In statement released shortly after the judge declared the mistrial on Monday, Pirro said pledged to bring the case before another jury.
“We have video showing piles of cash being given to a D.C. councilmember as part of a $156,000 bribe,” Pirro said. “Rest assured that we will retry this case and every corruption case to verdict.”
After a mistrial, prosecutors typically take stock of how jurors voted, and may even attempt to interview them to gain insights into the deliberations.
Those insights typically would be key to informing any decision to retry the case or not, said Paul Butler, a Georgetown University law professor and former public corruption prosecutor.
“It’s not the best judgment for a prosecutor to make that call without talking to the line prosecutors who tried the case and also trying to get a sense of what the vote breakdown was,” Butler said shortly after Pirro released her Monday statement.
Still, Butler said it was “unsurprising” that Pirro would almost immediately say she intends to bring the case again, given the political pressure she has facing to shore up her job in the second President Donald Trump administration.
“If they bring this case again, and there’s either a not guilty or a hung jury, that makes them look worse,” Butler said.
Salvador Rizzo contributed to this report.
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