PHILADELPHIA — A powerful union boss who has long held a tight grip on construction jobs and in the Philadelphia region and wielded political power in the city and Statehouse has been indicted on embezzlement and fraud charges along with a city councilman who allegedly did his bidding and six others.
Johnny “Doc” Dougherty exerted complete control over the union, according to the 116-count indictment, using that power to “repeatedly and persistently steal its funds and put his own self-interests over that of the membership.” All told, the defendants misspent more than $600,000 in union funds, officials said.
Dougherty leads the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, with 5,000 members, along with the city’s Building Trades Council, an umbrella group with more than 70,000 members. He has been at the helm of the century-old electricians union for 25 years.
The union over the years has emerged as a major political donor, spending tens of millions of dollars through its political action committees, mostly to help Democrats in Pennsylvania.
According to the indictment, Dougherty used union credit cards to buy groceries and household goods and to splurge on restaurants, and let others in his orbit do the same. He allegedly used union funds to pay contractors for work at his South Philadelphia home and bar. And he put friends and family members on the union’s payroll, showering them with raises and overtime for hours they didn’t work and using them to do personal tasks, prosecutors said.
Councilman Bobby Henon, a former union official, got a $70,000 union salary to press Dougherty’s interests at City Hall, officials said in the indictment unsealed Wednesday. Henon used his office to pressure Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Comcast Corp. and others to use union labor, prosecutors said at a morning news conference.
The union paid Dougherty $1.4 million between 2010 and 2016. He and the other defendants are due to appear in court Friday.
His lawyer, Henry E. Hockeimer, said Dougherty has devoted “all his energies” to the union for a quarter century, leading to dramatic increases in wages and benefits. “To allege that John in any way attempted to defraud the union he cares about so deeply is preposterous,” Hockeimer said in a statement.
Dougherty helped Mayor Jim Kenney win election in 2015, the same year his brother, Kevin Dougherty, won a seat on the state Supreme Court. Henon had been Dougherty’s political director before winning a City Council seat in 2011.
T.J. Rooney, a former state Democratic Party chairman, said the political reach of the electricians’ union under Dougherty “in the region is unparalled and in the state is tremendously impactful.”
The electricians’ union is easily the most influential private-sector labor union in Pennsylvania politics, rivaled only by public-sector labor unions, he said.
Dougherty, however, is not “some old-school cigar-chomping union boss,” Rooney said. The union, under Dougherty, has expanded its numbers and profile through apprenticeship programs and its deep involvement in community projects and charitable missions, Rooney said.
“That’s not old-timey, that’s new-schooley,” he said.
Henon has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. His office said he will continue to serve.
“I have done nothing wrong,” Henon said in a statement Wednesday. “Every action I have taken as City Council member has been with the goal of serving working people.”
The defendants include Henon, the majority leader on council and chair of the public property and public works committee; union president Brian Burrows, and union officials Michael Neill, Marita Crawford, Niko Rodriguez and Brian Fiocca — Dougherty’s nephew. Also charged was Anthona Massa, who ran a construction company that received more than $1.8 million from the union for work done between 2010 and 2016.
