Jack Kelly, a Friend Indeed

by Isaiah Thompson

Business As Usual

Councilman Jack Kelly doesn't have the best memory sometimes.

Testifying this week in the trial of his former chief of staff, Christopher Wright, Kelly couldn't recall whether he'd seen a disclosure form on which Wright indicated receiving a $1,000 check from the Chawla brothers — Wright's co-defendants and businessmen who had successfully lobbied Kelly to introduce a bill allowing mechanical parking garages they intended to install in a development.

Asked if he knew that Wright had lived rent-free for a year in a Rittenhouse Square apartment initially owned by the Chawlas, Kelly had to think hard.

"I believe he said he was living in an apartment," he finally said, sounding slightly irritated, as if being asked to recall what he had for supper last Tuesday. "I think he said Ravi [Ravinder Chawla] was loaning it to him."

What Kelly does remember is friendship. He remembers very well, he testified, that Sant Properties — owned by Hardeep Chawla — has made contributions to his office since 2003, and that during his tight race for re-election last year, the Chawlas came through — though his memory needed jogging:

"Do you remember asking Ravi Chawla to come up with $30,000 [in campaign contributions]? ... He had it the next day," asked a lawyer for Ravinder Chawla.

"I don't recall," said Kelly vaguely.

"But you recall getting the money?"

"Oh yes," answered Kelly, brightening.

In theory, Kelly is serving as a witness for government prosecutors. But lawyers for the defense used the councilman's somewhat contribution-dependent memory to show that the Chawla brothers (and their attorney and co-defendant, Andrew Teitelman) didn't need to bribe Wright to get Kelly's ear. They had already obtained it, legally. 

Asked whether the Chawlas' history of contributions was a reason he'd helped them, Kelly answered, "Yes."

It isn't illegal to favor campaign contributors — though it might strike taxpayers as slightly audacious for Kelly to freely admit that his contributors are his friends, and that his friends have his ear in this manner. But Kelly isn't on trial — and neither is the way business is done, legally, at City Hall.

(isaiah.thompson@citypaper.net)