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Detroit businessman La-Van Hawkins, center, returns to court with his attorneys. On Monday, verdicts were handed down against him and four other defendants.Hawkins is found guilty of fraud, lies
Sweet Georgia Brown owner faces prison, fines after lying to grand jury.
Detroit businessman La-Van Hawkins, who co-owns the upscale Greektown restaurant Sweet Georgia Brown, was convicted of lying to a grand jury and wire fraud but acquitted of charges he conspired to corrupt Philadelphia's former treasurer.
The convictions in federal court mean Hawkins could get prison and a fine, although prosecutors would not comment after verdicts were handed down against him and four others.
If convicted on all charges, Hawkins could have received up to 125 years in prison and a fine of $2.5 million.
The perjury and fraud charges against Hawkins, a former Burger King and Pizza Hut franchisee, stemmed from two $5,000 checks that he sent Corey Kemp in 2002 when Kemp was Philadelphia's treasurer. Hawkins, 45, told a grand jury that one of the checks was a wedding present and the second was for African-American newspapers in Philadelphia that had helped him in a lawsuit against Burger King. Hawkins sued the fast-food company in 2000 for fraud and breach of contract, settling the case for $30 million in 2001.
Prosecutors accused Hawkins of conspiring with lawyer Ronald White and two bank executives to bribe Kemp with a trip to the 2003 Super Bowl, a new deck for his house and other lavish gifts. In exchange, prosecutors said, White and Kemp helped Hawkins fool the owner of 100 Church's Fried Chicken outlets in Detroit and Chicago into thinking he had access to money from Philadelphia's city pension fund.
Hawkins planned to buy the restaurants and share the profits with White, according to the indictment issued last summer.
All of the defendants are expected to appeal U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson's decision to remove a juror from the case 11 days after deliberations began. Other jurors had complained that the woman was biased against the FBI and unwilling to deliberate.
The jury announced that it was unable to reach a verdict on 14 of the 79 charges in the case. None of the unresolved counts involves Hawkins.
Baylson said Monday evening that he would wait until today to decide whether to declare a mistrial on those counts or ask the jury to resume its deliberations. He has barred the defendants and their lawyers from talking publicly about the case until the jury is discharged.
Michael Layne, a spokesman for Hawkins and Sweet Georgia Brown, said the eatery's staff is saddened by the convictions but won't be affected. Layne said the 3-year-old restaurant will continue to be run by Frank Taylor.
Monday was the 19th day of jury deliberations. Jurors convicted Kemp on 27 counts, including extortion, mail fraud, filing false tax returns and accepting gifts from people seeking city contracts and extortion.
Bank executives Glenn Holck and Stephen Umbrell were convicted of conspiracy. Prosecutors said Holck and Umbrell arranged loans to Kemp's church and one of his friends. The bankers' attorneys defended the loans as proper and said their clients were being prosecuted to save face when a sweeping FBI probe of city government failed to incriminate a more high-profile target.
White died in November, before the trial began. The jury acquitted White's mistress, Janice Knight, on the conspiracy charges but convicted her of perjury and misusing welfare-to-work money. Prosecutors said White and Kemp arranged for Knight's printing business to receive payments from people and companies seeking city contracts.
The FBI's investigation into the matter became public when police discovered a hidden listening device in the office of Philadelphia Mayor John Street in the final weeks of a hotly contested re-election campaign. Street, who was never charged with any wrongdoing, still defeated his well-financed Republican opponent.
This spring, FBI agents revealed that they had placed the bug in an attempt to learn whether Street and White had conspired to trade city contracts for campaign contributions.
Prosecutors presented the jury with transcripts of hundreds of wiretapped phone calls by White and Kemp. Hawkins is involved in 17 of the conversations.
In the recordings, Kemp appeared to frequently take orders from White, who held no official position in city government. The transcripts contain no instance in which Street appears to have engaged in influence peddling.
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The Detroit News.
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