In announcing the punishment, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Schmehl acknowledged the immeasurable impact the former labor leader had had on the city over nearly 30 years at the helm of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the state’s most powerful labor union.
Still, the judge told him: “Somewhere along that trip, you lost your way. You lost your integrity. … And for that you must pay the price.”
Dougherty, 64, remained stoic as he learned his fate, nearly five years after the indictment that upended his union and his life.
He apologized to Local 98′s members. And — in a stunning moment from a man who has maintained his innocence for years and insisted he’d be vindicated in court — he told Schmehl he took “full responsibility” for his crimes.
Somewhere along the way, he said, he had conflated himself with his union.
“I knew better,” Dougherty told the judge. “I let the lines get blurred. I got over my head. … I’m responsible. I’m the boss.”
The nearly four-hour hearing that played out in a federal courtroom in Reading delivered a damning postscript to Dougherty’s legacy as a one-man center of gravity who transformed Local 98 from a sleepy union local into a 5,000-member powerhouse as effective at propelling allies into elected office as it was at extracting concessions from some of the city’s largest employers.
But Dougherty’s reckoning could have been far worse. The sentence Schmehl imposed — which also included an order that the ex-union chief serve three years’ probation and complete 100 hours of community service upon his release — was less than half the term of up to 14 years that prosecutors had sought.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Costello maintained that Dougherty had more than earned such a punishment, noting that two separate juries had concluded that he’d abused the trust placed in him by his union and the residents of Philadelphia.
The labor leader’s first trial in 2021 — at which he and former Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon were convicted in a yearslong bribery scheme — exposed Dougherty’s political clout as bought, at least in part, through base favor trading and regular payments in the form of a union salary to Henon.
Dougherty “got what he paid for,” Costello said Thursday. Henon, who is serving a 3 1/2 year sentence, repeatedly allowed the labor leader to use the powers of his office to avenge his personal and professional grievances.
The second trial last year ended in Dougherty’s conviction alongside former Local 98 president Brian Burrows in a $600,000 embezzlement scheme. It exposed the men’s routine and cavalier cheating of Local 98 members through home renovations, restaurant meals and purchases of groceries and mundane household goods paid for with union money.
“I got a different world than most people ever exist in,” Dougherty said in one phone call to his brother, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty, that was caught on an FBI wiretap and later played at trial.
What John Dougherty neglected to say on that call, Costello said Thursday, was that his generosity was funded by the members of Local 98.
“This was not a momentary lapse in judgment,” the prosecutor told Schmehl. “The position of power he held and the way he wielded it prevented anyone from questioning his power.”
Dougherty’s lawyer, Greg Pagano, urged the judge to look past those crimes and see the man known to the dozens of family members, friends and supporters who packed the Reading courtroom Thursday.
More than 250 people — including former Gov. Ed Rendell, former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, and several current and former members of City Council — sent letters in advance of the proceedings extolling Dougherty’s history as a reliable father, a devoted husband, a dedicated community leader, and a man always willing to give his time and money to others.
“The John Dougherty that I know is certainly not the one who’s been defined by these two trials,” Don Siegel, the former vice president of IBEW, said in court. “He’s one of the biggest cheerleaders of Philadelphia I have ever met. There’s no stronger person in the labor movement than John Dougherty.”
In her own compelling and emotional appeal for lenience, Dougherty’s 43-year-old daughter, Erin, detailed from the witness stand her “complicated” relationship with her father and what it was like growing up as a child of “Johnny Doc.”
“The incessant ringing of his phone and text messages is something I wish you could hear,” she said. “His phone would ring at all hours of the day and all the hours of the night.”
It wasn’t just union members, she added. Neighbors would call seeking help replacing a roof. People he did not know sought his assistance with matters as small as routine annoyances at City Hall and as large as struggles with substance abuse.
No matter how often or how late at night those calls would come in, Erin Dougherty added, her father “never once rolled over. He never once ignored the call.”
And yet, there was no one, she told Schmehl, to whom her father was more dedicated than her mother, Cecilia, his wife of 40 years.
Cecilia Dougherty suffers from a congenital brain injury that has rendered her a quadriplegic and reliant on 24-hour medical care — much of it provided by her husband. Her continued survival, Erin Dougherty said, may depend on her father’s continued freedom.
Schmehl acknowledged that risk Thursday, calling Cecelia Dougherty’s condition “tragic” and noting that her situation made this “a particularly difficult sentencing.”
He rejected a request from prosecutors to have Dougherty taken into custody immediately, giving him until Sept. 4 to report to prison, instead.
Still, Dougherty faces more potential legal jeopardy before that date arrives. The judge is weighing a request from Local 98 to require Dougherty to help pay back more than $2 million it lost as a result of his thefts and the extensive legal bills it racked up during the prolonged investigation of his crimes.
Meanwhile, prosecutors have not yet said whether they will retry him on a third set of charges — an extortion trial that ended in a mistrial earlier this year. If they do and he’s found guilty, he could have additional time added to his prison term.
But as Dougherty emerged from the courthouse Thursday — a smile emerging on his face — he told a waiting crowd of news cameras and supporters he was eager to put it all behind him for now.
“I took my beating like a man,” he said. He embraced family members, flashed a thumbs up to others, and then quickly excused himself, saying he was eager to make it back to Philadelphia, where he had plans that night with his wife.
“We watched "Jaws 1" last night,” he said as he walked toward the parking garage. Tonight, he added: “We’re gonna watch "Jaws 2" with the shades drawn.”
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