Wiretaps disclosed to jury as trial of Ironworkers boss nears end

Shortly after 10 a.m. on Nov. 5, 2013, an aide phoned Ironworkers union boss Joseph Dougherty with the news that Local 401 business agent Edward Sweeney had been acquitted of threatening a woman who worked for a nonunion contractor.

"That's good," said Dougherty in the call, recorded by the FBI. "Ed got lucky. There shouldn't be a crime against people like that. You should be able to do everything you like against them [people who use nonunion workers], and it's legal."

Five days of testimony in the federal racketeering trial of the 73-year-old union business manager have produced no evidence that Dougherty - "Joe Doc" to his members - directly ordered attacks on nonunion job sites.

But the wiretaps and testimony by Local 401 members who pleaded guilty hoping for lenient sentences made it clear that Dougherty did not object to using intimidation and violence to ensure jobs for his 700 members, and that he did nothing to stop it.

"This is not just a picket line, it is a war," Dougherty told ironworkers during a June 20, 2012, membership meeting at the Local 401 hall in Northeast Philadelphia.

At Friday's trial session, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Livermore showed the jury copies of handwritten reports delivered by business agent Sean O'Donnell at membership meetings presided over by Dougherty and other Local 401 officials.

In the reports, O'Donnell took time to "thank the Shadow Gang for more good work" - code words for damaging anchor bolts, construction equipment, and other property in order to cause expensive delays for nonunion builders and contractors. O'Donnell, 44, a member of a large family of ironworkers, is one of 11 Local 401 members who were charged with Dougherty who have already pleaded guilty.

Whether this evidence, including Dougherty's expletive-punctuated wiretap rants, is enough to convict him of racketeering conspiracy will be put to the jury next week.

Livermore told U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson that he will rest the prosecution's case Monday.

It is not certain whether Dougherty will testify in his defense, but it seems unlikely. Defense attorney Fortunato N. Perri Jr. told Baylson he did not expect the defense case to take more than two hours.

Dougherty, Local 401's leader for 16 years and a member for a half-century, is charged with racketeering conspiracy and related offenses involving about two dozen acts of vandalism and arson on nonunion job sites between 2008 and 2014.

Livermore has argued that Dougherty ran the union as a criminal enterprise to persuade nonunion contractors to hire union ironworkers.

The vandalism occurred during the recession, when construction jobs evaporated and Dougherty and his business agents struggled to find work for their increasingly desperate members.

In questioning government witnesses, Perri has emphasized that there has been no proof Dougherty ordered the violence and vandalism.

Perri has argued that Dougherty has been incriminated by rogue members of Local 401 now eager to testify for prosecutors hoping escape long prison sentences.