Testimony in John Dougherty’s extortion trial zeroes in on union chief’s reactions after nephew’s job site fight

READING — For days, jurors in former labor leader John Dougherty’s extortion trial have sat through testimony exhaustively cataloging his nephew’s troubled work history, the man’s August 2020 assault on one of his bosses in a dispute over pay, and threats he allegedly made to punish the supervisors he felt had wronged him.

But so far, those testifying have had little to say about the actions of the ex-union chief himself.

That changed Monday as federal prosecutors shifted their focus toward detailing Dougherty’s reactions to news of nephew Greg Fiocca’s workplace outburst with a series of witnesses who spoke directly to the former head of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in the hours after the attack.

Fran Rothwein — a Local 98 foreman on the construction of the Live! Casino and Hotel in South Philadelphia, where the job site assault occurred — told jurors that Dougherty was “screaming” mad at the project’s management after learning they’d docked Fiocca’s pay citing repeated absences and, after the assault on a supervisor, were pushing to have him booted from the job.

Dougherty threatened to pull all Local 98 electricians from the site, effectively shutting down the project, and to interfere with the contractor’s ability to land future work in the city, Rothwein said. (The foreman later walked back that testimony under cross-examination, saying a frustrated Dougherty was merely saying he could do those things — not necessarily vowing that he would.)

Nonetheless, the contractor on the receiving end of those threats — Ray Palmieri, whose company oversaw electrical work at the casino — testified they were still enough to spook him.

» READ MORE: As it happened: Witnesses detail Dougherty’s talk of pulling workers from casino job after nephew’s fight

Despite his reservations, Palmieri told jurors, he continued to employ Fiocca out of concern for what might happen if he didn’t.

“I was worried about losing men off the job to complete the project,” he said, adding later: “I was worried about my employees and [had] to complete this project.”

That testimony — which kicked off the trial’s second week — offered the most direct evidence to date to support the government’s case that Dougherty extorted Palmieri with threats of economic harm to keep Fiocca on the job.

» READ MORE: ‘We’re pulling everyone off the job:’ Jurors hear recording of the heated exchange at the heart of Johnny Doc’s extortion case

But the day in court didn’t entirely play out exactly as prosecutors might have hoped.

Throughout the trial, defense lawyers Greg Pagano and Rocco Cipparone Jr. have argued that Fiocca’s Aug. 19, 2020, assault came after months of harassment from supervisors singling him out and second-guessing his every move. Dougherty, they’ve maintained, was simply doing his job — backing up a member of his union who felt he’d been unfairly shorted on pay he was owed.

Pagano, an attorney for Dougherty, pressed Rothwein to acknowledge that he knew the union chief wouldn’t pull his workers from the casino project no matter what he might have said in the heat of the moment in the hours after Fiocca’s attack.

“You knew he had the ability to,” the defense lawyer asked the foreman, “but you knew he wouldn’t. … You knew as business manager of the Philadelphia Building Trades he’d be biting off his own nose to spite his face. He’d be hurting his members.”

Rothwein agreed.

Even Palmieri, when pressed under cross-examination, admitted that when he spoke directly to Dougherty in the hours after the dustup between Fiocca and his supervisor, the union head never directly conveyed any threats to him.

He had only heard them from Rothwein, Palmieri said.

And despite what Dougherty might have told Rothwein about his ability to block the contractor from other work in the city, Palmieri still managed to land a $26 million contract with Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia in the weeks following that blow-up.

Still, in his own questioning of the contractor Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Grenell stressed that the fact that Dougherty never followed through on the alleged threats was exactly the point.

He didn’t have to; Palmieri’s fear of repercussions was enough to keep Fiocca on the job, the prosecutor said.

“It was a decision I had to make,” the contractor told jurors. “I had a project to get done.”

James Foy, then Local 98′s assistant business manager, was dispatched to the casino job site by an “aggressive and aggravated” Dougherty after the union leader learned of his nephew’s confrontation with his bosses.

But while police had been called and Palmieri, the employee Fiocca attacked and Local 98′s own foremen on the project agreed that Dougherty’s nephew had to go, Foy said his instructions from the union leader were clear even before he arrived: Fiocca was to remain in his post.

“It was not my decision to make,” Foy told the jury. “It would be John’s.”