In a first, John Dougherty testifies under oath as his fight with his former lawyer lands in court

READING — After two criminal trials, countless court hearings, and years spent in the crosshairs of the FBI, John Dougherty did something Wednesday he’s never done before:

Testify in court under oath.

The former labor leader — who is awaiting sentencing on federal embezzlement and bribery charges and a third trial next month on allegations of extortion — took the witness stand during an unusual hearing pitting him against his former lawyer. Over roughly an hour of questioning, he maintained that his defense in his bribery trial had been tainted by conflicts of interest and that, as a result, his convictions should be overturned.

At issue? Whether the legal representation Dougherty’s longtime lawyer Henry E. Hockeimer provided was compromised due to pressure from one of his law firm’s biggest clients, Comcast. The cable giant featured prominently throughout Dougherty’s bribery trial as prosecutors accused him of strong-arming company officials into granting concessions to union labor during its 2015 franchise renegotiation with the city.

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Hockeimer — who leads the white-collar defense division at Center City law firm Ballard Spahr and left Dougherty’s case after his 2021 conviction — insists he briefed Dougherty several times on his firm’s relationship with Comcast and the union chief never expressed concerns before now.

“He was well aware,” the lawyer said in testimony of his own Wednesday.

But under questioning from prosecutors, Dougherty dug in his heels.

“We didn’t talk about it,” he said. “I don’t know if he lied or not, but he didn’t tell me.”

The fact that Dougherty was testifying at all — eight years after federal authorities’ investigation of him burst into public view with a series of FBI raids — was remarkable.

He’s repeatedly said he was eager to speak to the court directly — both at the 2021 bribery trial alongside former City Councilmember Bobby Henon and at the embezzlement trial that ended in his conviction on additional charges last year.

But the attorneys who represented him through both thought better of the idea and persuaded him to stay off the stand.

Testifying could have opened Dougherty up to aggressive cross-examination from prosecutors. And with the fast-talking, outspoken union chief’s conversational propensity to quickly bounce from topic to topic, there’s no telling where such an interrogation might have led.

Even in the limited confines of Wednesday’s hearing, Dougherty was met with contentious questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea Witzleben.

“Are you a pretty assertive guy?” Witzleben asked at one point in her cross-examination.

”Depends on the situation,” Dougherty responded. “Some are more sensitive and some are more aggressive.”

Still, throughout, Dougherty remained composed and consistent in his story.

As he prepared to be sworn in, he straightened his tie and strode confidently to the stand. He clasped his hands in front of him while, under questioning from defense lawyer Caroline Cinquanto, he insisted he hadn’t been fully briefed on the potential conflict Ballard’s representation of Comcast posed.

Hockeimer, who had represented Dougherty since 2006, maintained that in his view, there was no conflict at all. He maintained he repeatedly explained to Dougherty his firm’s ties to the company and each time, he said, Dougherty’s response was the same: “Henry, you’re my guy.”

“All I wanted to do represent John and help John,” Hockeimer said.

Still, he explained, he took precautions to avoid the appearance of a conflict — including setting up a firewall preventing Ballard lawyers working on Comcast-related matters from accessing files tied Dougherty’s defense and making clear to his colleagues on the Comcast account that he might have to cross-examine company executives summoned to testify at trial.

Had there been any improper pressure from Comcast or his bosses in his defense of Dougherty, Hockeimer said, he would have left his law firm.

“John was too important a client and friend to me to stop representing him,” he said.

To prevail in his bid to overturn his conviction, Dougherty must not only prove that that there was a conflict but also that it harmed his defense in some way. Testifying Wednesday, the union chief zeroed in on Hockeimer’s decision not to call former Comcast executive vice president David L. Cohen as a defense witness during the trial or interview him beforehand, despite Dougherty’s repeated requests.

“I had a lot of history with [Cohen] and he understood how we did business,” Dougherty said, adding that he believed Cohen could “explain my actions” to a jury.

As Dougherty told it, he’d developed a personal and professional relationship with Cohen that stretched over decades. Cohen served as chief of staff to former Mayor Ed Rendell in the ‘90s, then as chairman of Ballard Spahr before being named as Comcast’s executive vice president in 2002. Months before Dougherty’s 2021 trial, President Joe Biden nominated Cohen to become the U.S. Ambassador to Canada.

Throughout all of those roles, Dougherty testified, Cohen often turned to him for advice and assistance. He relied on Dougherty’s contacts with other union leaders to smooth over tense labor relations and to facilitate Comcast’s 1999 franchise talks with the Philadelphia, a deal that resulted in the cable giant agreeing to use union contractors that paid prevailing wages for work done in commercial trade buildings in a portion of Center City.

And so, Dougherty said, it wasn’t surprising that Comcast negotiators turned to him in 2015 when the city was renegotiating that franchise agreement with the company — a series of meetings that would later become a focus in Dougherty’s bribery trial.

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Prosecutors accused Dougherty of using Henon, who has been convicted of bribery, to apply improper pressure on Comcast executives throughout the negotiations in order to secure concessions that benefitted the city’s building trades. Dougherty insisted Wednesday that Cohen would have known there was nothing unusual about his involvement in those talks and should have been called as a witness to explain that to the jury.

“He knew that meeting that day was nothing more than how we did business,” he said.

Hockeimer, however, maintained the executives’ e-mails told a different story.

As the talks dragged on, Cohen repeatedly referred to demands presented in the talks as “illegal” and “unlawful” in e-mails to the company’s negotiators. (Dougherty said Wednesday that the cable executive wasn’t referring to his requests but those from various city council members looking to get their pet projects addressed in the deal.)

Another Comcast executive, recounting a meeting with Dougherty in an email to Cohen, described the union leader’s bargaining tactics as “extortion.”

Hockeimer said Wednesday he ultimately decided not to call Cohen as a witness out of concern it could open the door to those e-mails being presented to the jury — a decision the lawyer insisted he explained to his client and with which Dougherty eventually agreed.

“I just didn’t think [taking that risk] would be appropriate strategy,” Hockeimer said. “It wouldn’t be fair to John.”

But despite their falling out in the years that followed and the accusations and acrimony that brought him to court Wednesday, Hockeimer remained resolute on one point: his belief that the jury got it wrong in Dougherty’s case.

Asked whether he believed the union leader should have been acquitted at his bribery trial, the lawyer responded emphatically: “I absolutely do.”