Union probed over anti-Nutter campaign flyer

The city Ethics Board is investigating whether state Senate candidate John J. Dougherty's union was behind an anonymous 2007 mayoral primary campaign flyer that said a vote for Michael Nutter "is a vote for racial profiling."

The flyer featured a photo of Black Panthers being strip-searched by police in the 1970s and read: "Welcome to the Reality of Mike Nutter's 'Stop and Frisk.' " About 125,000 copies were distributed in North and West Philadelphia on primary day, the board said in court papers filed yesterday.

The board has asked the court for an order to prevent the destruction of computer files, including e-mail or communications between the political consultant who admitted designing the flyer and Dougherty and two other union officials.

Dougherty, business manager of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, supported Tom Knox in the Democratic primary.

Under state law, it is illegal to distribute campaign literature without identifying the source of the funding.

Common Pleas Court Judge Jane Cutler Greenspan scheduled a hearing for this morning. J. Shane Creamer Jr., the board's executive director, declined to comment while the matter was still before the court.

Frank Keel, a spokesman for Dougherty, said, "We'll have no comment except to question the timing and the motive" of the board's action.

Mayor Nutter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The board's petition for an injunction said the flyer was created by political consultant Tommie St. Hill, who said he did it "on his own initiative and at his own expense."

St. Hill said in a deposition that he received money only from judicial candidates, the ethics board said.

But it said a subsequent review of campaign finance documents showed that St. Hill or his firm, RCS Diversified Consultants Inc., received $22,500 between May 2 and July 3 from the electricions' union PAC.

The union itself also paid St. Hill a monthly retainer of $4,000 a month during 2007, the board said.

Its efforts to obtain St. Hill's computer files coincide with a separate case in federal court in which the board is trying to block an attempt by the electricians' union PAC to withhold details of its estimated $2.4 million in political spending last year.

St. Hill said he appeared before the board last year; he questioned its decision to go to court a week before the primary in which Dougherty is running against two other candidates for the Democratic nomination for State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo's seat.

"Why didn't they ask me for it then?" he said. "I think the Board of Ethics should be investigated. It's a farce."

The two other PAC officials indentified in the court papers were Bob Henon, the PAC's political director, and Keel, the union's media consultant.