Ex-councilman Williams to change ‘not guilty’ plea

Former Dayton City Commissioner Joey Williams is scheduled Friday to change his previous “not guilty” plea to a charge of corruptly soliciting a bribe, the docket in U.S. District Court shows.

Williams, 53, has been accused of taking more than $50,000 in money and benefits, such as home renovations, from an unnamed individual in 2015 in exchange for using his influence to get the city and CityWide Development Corp. to award them contracts, according to a federal indictment made public in April.

Williams has pleaded not guilty to that charge.

A hearing to allow Williams to change his plea is set for 9:30 a.m. Friday before Judge Thomas Rose in Dayton’s U.S. District Court. That hearing was first scheduled last week.

Williams’ Covington, Ky. attorney, Patrick John Hanley, declined to comment when reached Tuesday afternoon.

Williams left a job as market president at KeyBank in May, a bank spokeswoman told this newspaper previously.

Williams is a Dayton native who also served on the Dayton School Board. He resigned his seat on the city commission in February 2018, shortly after winning re-election in November 2017. One reason he offered for the resignation was that the new job as KeyBank Dayton market president required time and travel.

Williams was among four Dayton men whose federal charges were made public in April. All four initially pleaded not guilty. The indictments led a federal prosecutor to say that the investigation found a “culture of corruption” in the Dayton area, and that more indictments would soon be revealed.

Former state Rep. Clayton Luckie, 56, pleaded guilty in July to one count of mail fraud, according to a plea agreement and statement of facts filed with U.S. District Court in Dayton.