Local 98 business agent details calls with John Dougherty over complaints about his nephew; defense witness says Doc wanted to keep work sites open after COVID shutdowns

Five days after John Dougherty’s nephew assaulted a supervisor on a construction site prompting his bosses to demand he be booted from the job, the union leader was still seething about that request.

“I heard a little jabber-jaw down at the Shore this weekend,” Dougherty said during a meeting with roughly 30 business agents and other personnel of his union, Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, in which he expressed frustration over gossip he’d heard about the dustup.

And with that, court is in recess for the day. Prosecutors — who have indicated they’re nearing the end of their case — will pick up Wednesday with FBI Special Agent Jason Blake back on the witness stand.

At the end of the day, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl explained to the jury that the case was taking slightly longer than originally budgeted, stretching a second week.

Prosecutors next took the jury back to where they started the day: March 18, 2016.

With FBI Special Agent Jason Blake on the stand, the government played a series of phone calls between Dougherty and Fiocca, as the labor leader tried to talk down his frenetic nephew, irate after cursing out his supervisor at an apartment building project on Spring Garden Street.

As the government began to wrap up its case, prosecutors next called to the stand Linda Coney, who worked as the Palmieri Electric office manager in the Navy Yard during the Live! Casino project.

During her brief stint on the stand, Coney explained to the jury that her duties included cutting weekly checks for the workers there, going off the hourly time sheets the project foremen sent to her.

Moving out of order again due to witness availability, the defense next called to the stand William Markle, a now-retired longtime Local 98 construction electrician who worked alongside Fiocca on the renovation of the Four Seasons Hotel in Logan Square in 2015.

And, though most witnesses thus far have not been shy about sharing their workplace complaints about Fiocca, Markle told the panel he had none.

After that early (and brief) interlude into the defense, we’re now back to regularly scheduled programming and the continuation of the government’s case.

Prosecutors have called a series of brief witnesses, including:

John Dougherty’s successor as head of the Building Trades Council told jurors Tuesday afternoon that getting the Live! Casino and Hotel project in Philadelphia back up and running after pandemic-induced shutdowns in 2020 was among his proudest accomplishments.

“It should go to John’s legacy,” said Ryan Boyer, who took over the role after Dougherty was forced to step down after his 2021 conviction on bribery charges. “Not only all the things we did to keep our members safe but to keep construction work going … It was a lot of good will and a lot of coordination and that was all led by John.

First up for the defense is Jack O’Neill, a former lawyer for Local 98 and the Philadelphia Building Trades Council (and, for those with long memories, a onetime candidate in the 2017 Democratic primary for the city’s district attorney – a race that was won by Larry Krasner.)

Under questioning from defense lawyer Greg Pagano, O’Neill walked jurors through the herculean efforts by John Dougherty and other heads of building trades unions in the city to reopen worksites shut down by the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020.

While we’re waiting for the defense to begin presenting its evidence, it’s worth noting that while John Dougherty and Greg Fiocca are spending the day in court, one of their close relatives is also in the news today.

Sean Dougherty – nephew of the ex-union chief, Fiocca’s cousin and, for the record, son of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty – is on the ballot this primary election day, hoping to unseat State Rep. Kevin Boyle (D., Phila.) in Northeast Philadelphia’s 172nd House District.

John Dougherty’s temper could at times be explosive, defense lawyer Greg Pagano emphasized in his questioning of Local 98 business agent Robert Thompson Tuesday morning. But the ex-union chief’s primary interest, the attorney sought to convey, was in making sure his union’s members were treated fairly and working while on the job.

Thompson largely agreed.

On a call with Local 98 business agents in the week after the casino trailer scuffle, John Dougherty described the incident with his nephew as a “minor issue,” and a “little physical confrontation, allegedly with the superintendent.”

“Just so you know, it had nothing to do with the last name of the person who was involved and everything to do with the position,” Dougherty told the agents on a call secretly recorded by a confidential informant.

Leading up to the August 2020 construction trailer brawl, Local 98 business agent Robert Thompson said he regularly fielded phone calls from supervisors the casino site, grousing about issues with Greg Fiocca’s attendance and work.

But when Thompson said he would call Fiocca to ask about those complaints, Fiocca would insist he was doing what he was supposed to, and there was little to be done.

Prosecutors next jumped to Aug. 19, 2020 — the day Greg Fiocca physically confronted the Live! Casino project manager in his trailer.

The morning began with a call from John Dougherty, asking Local 98 business agent Robert Thompson to go to the site to meet James Foy, the union’s assistant then assistant business manager, to deal with an incident involving Fiocca.

With Local 98 business agent Robert Thompson on the stand, prosecutors first took jurors back to March 2016, playing a series of wiretapped phone calls between Thompson and John Dougherty after Dougherty’s nephew had been laid off from a job on a development on Spring Garden Street for cursing out a supervisor.

“I just got a call from Greg,” Dougherty relayed to Thompson, saying his nephew told him that he was being laid off. “I was just screaming at him.”

Good morning from the Reading federal courthouse, where a sixth day of testimony is underway in the extortion trial of former labor leader John Dougherty and his nephew, Greg Fiocca.

Prosecutors are continuing to call witnesses as they near the end of their case.

On Monday, prosecutors shifted their focus toward detailing John Dougherty’s reaction to Greg Fiocca’s assault on one of his bosses with a series of witnesses who spoke directly to the union chief in the hours after the attack.

Fran Rothwein, a Local 98 foreman on the casino job told jurors that Dougherty was “screaming” mad at the project’s management after learning they’d docked Fiocca’s pay and were pushing to have him booted from the job.

Unlike John Dougherty’s two earlier trials — both of which played out at the federal courthouse in Center City — his third will take place in Reading, starting with opening arguments there Wednesday, once jury selection in Philadelphia is done.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl, who has presided over all of Dougherty’s recent legal matters, is normally stationed at the small federal courthouse in downtown Reading.

Greg Fiocca, 31, is John Dougherty’s nephew and a former member of Local 98 who grew up in in Pennsport in the house next door to his uncle.

But despite Fiocca’s troubled work history, including altercations with former supervisors, Dougherty appointed him in 2020 to the plum posting as Local 98′s steward on Live! Casino’s project.

John Dougherty, widely known as “Johnny Doc,” was once considered the most powerful union leader in the state, transforming Local 98 in his three decades at its helm into a powerhouse in the arenas of politics and organized labor.

Under his oversight, union money and manpower helped elect governors, members of Congress, mayors, judges, and members of City Council, and his once sleepy electrician’s union became a force capable of extracting significant labor concessions from some of the largest companies in the region.

For a third time in as many years, John Dougherty is facing a federal felony trial — this time on conspiracy and extortion charges.

The former labor leader and his nephew, Greg Fiocca, are accused of threatening a contractor and a job site manager amid a dispute over Fiocca’s poor job performance and pay. Prosecutors say that while working on construction of the Live! Casino in South Philadelphia in 2020, Fiocca assaulted his supervisor and that Dougherty later threatened the block the contractor’s ability to land future work in Philadelphia.