PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Fraudulence or negligence? That’s the choice attorneys gave the jury in evaluating the evidence of the federal embezzlement trial for former Philadelphia labor leader and power broker John Dougherty Monday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea Witzleben painted a picture of Dougherty and former IBEW Local 98 president Brian Burrows, his co-defendant, as men who spent union money on themselves simply because they were so powerful they could get away with it.
The prosecutor described Dougherty as someone who stole from the union “… in ways large and small,” from groceries purchased with a union credit card to construction work worth more than $40,000 that was secretly billed to the union. In all, Dougherty and Burrows, along with several co-defendants who have already pleaded guilty, are accused of embezzling $650,000 from the union. But Witzleben said it was done in increments to escape detection.
She quoted Dougherty in a wiretap saying, “What I try to do is keep it within reason so it don’t look too crazy.”
Dougherty’s Attorney Greg Pagano dismissed that narrative, saying Dougherty “worked his tail off” building the union into a powerhouse to increase hours and pay for his members and that he never would have embezzled from them.
Pagano added that the instances where Dougherty sought reimbursement for personal spending were mistakes, sometimes exacerbated by the government’s seizure of union financial records, which made reconstructing expenses difficult.
“This is a case about negligent behavior, not fraudulent behavior,” he said.
Pagano and Burrows’ attorney Mark Kasten criticized the government’s case, noting prosecutors collected 109,000 wiretapped calls and 58,000 surveillance videos, and seized or subpoenaed hundreds of thousands of documents but still have no “smoking gun.”
“Listen to what’s not on the tapes,” Kasten said. “There’s not a shred of evidence…”
Kasten also called prosecution witness, contractor Tony Massa, “a liar” who is only testifying to keep himself out of jail.
Massa is a contractor who worked on Dougherty’s house and on a pub owned by Dougherty and Burrows. The prosecution alleges that Dougherty and Burrows told Massa to include that work on bills he submitted to the union for other projects. According to the defense, Massa padded his bills to the union of his own accord and made up Dougherty and Burrows’ involvement when he got caught defrauding the union.
“He’s lying to the government and he’s going to lie to you,” Kasten told the jurors.
The case is expected to take seven weeks. Dougherty has already been convicted of bribery, along with former City Councilmember Bobby Henon, in a case that was part of the same indictment as the current embezzlement case. Henon is currently in prison serving a 3 ½ year sentence. Dougherty is expected to be sentenced once a verdict is rendered in this case.
Judge Jeffrey Schmehl is presiding.