Some see Donald "Gus" Dougherty's apparent plan to plead guilty to 98 of 100 federal criminal charges as a kind, money-saving gesture to law-abiding taxpayers.

I say the real beneficiary is John "Johnny Doc" Dougherty.

What, you're confused? I'll explain.

Gus and Doc aren't related, but the South Philadelphians are close, lifelong friends.

Gus Dougherty was a union contractor who, until his downfall, was dubbed "Electrician to the Stars."

John Dougherty runs Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and is, according to polls, the front-runner in the race to succeed State Sen. Vince Fumo.

Federal agents searched John Dougherty's house, and he remains under investigation, but he has not been charged with a crime.

The case against Doc's close, lifelong friend Gus, however, is sprawling - complete with confidential witnesses, consensual recordings, wiretaps and an undercover agent.

In a surprise move last week, Gus Dougherty's attorneys said he intended to plead guilty to nearly everything - committing tax fraud, bribing a banker, and hiding $869,599 he owed Local 98's employee benefits fund.

Gus disputes only the two charges that say he violated labor law prohibiting a contractor from giving a gift of value to a union official. He is charged with providing John Dougherty $115,600 worth of renovations on his South Philly rowhouse and a $24,000 price break on a condo stocked with high-tech audiovisual gear in North Wildwood, N.J.

In denying he bribed the union boss, Gus gave Doc a gift far more valuable than free flat-screen TVs. The gift of time.

Election day is April 22.

Gus Dougherty's trial, which would focus exclusively on his relationship with John Dougherty, is scheduled to start May 19.

Some say the timing will require voters to choose without having all the facts. It will leave them unfairly in the dark.

But will it? Rereading the file, I find it illuminating.

Who knew what, when?

For starters, Gus Dougherty would admit that by paying himself and his employees in cash - and not reporting their true wages - he pocketed $869,599 that should have gone to Local 98's employee benefits fund.

So a major union contractor who happens to be the close, lifelong friend of the union boss ripped off the union. That's not very brotherly.

Either John Dougherty didn't know what Gus was up to or ignored it. Both explanations hurt the candidate's credibility.

"I wasn't paying attention to what he was doing," John Dougherty said yesterday. "It wasn't my position to pay attention."

That's an understatement, added George Bochetto, a lawyer for Local 98. The union's health and welfare fund, he said, is "a completely separate entity" with its own trustees and watchdogs.

"Dougherty Electric, if the government is to be believed, really deceived Local 98," Bochetto said. "John Dougherty was deceived right along."

I grant Bochetto that Local 98 has 4,000 members and dozens of contractors. But given his powerful perch, wouldn't John Dougherty have heard rumblings that his close, lifelong friend was pulling a scam?

Signing the checks

Gus Dougherty also intends to plead guilty to "making false statements to health-care matters." This one is fascinating since Gus would be admitting a crime that arose from a favor for Doc.

Huh? you say.

In his spare time, John Dougherty runs the Pennsport Civic Association. In that capacity, the indictment states, Doc asked Gus to list an uninsured Pennsport worker on Dougherty Electric's payroll so she could receive health benefits.

In return, Pennsport reimbursed Dougherty Electric. The checks were signed by John Dougherty.

Steve Marino, a lawyer and Pennsport board member, is puzzled by my interest because the group believed the "sponsorship" was completely legal. He said the city's Office of Housing and Community Development, which funds the civic group, had recommended the arrangement.

I thought Marino was joking. He wasn't.

After a Pennsport director discovered how costly insuring one employee would be, she contacted OHCD, which suggested "contacting a local business to see if you can get the employee on their plan," Marino told me. "OHCD said it happens all the time. Everyone does it."

Again, like everything else in this case, the answers raise more questions.

If a small employer asking a bigger one to "sponsor" a stranger's health care is legal, why is Gus Dougherty pleading guilty to it?

If "everyone does it," why do we have a national health-care crisis?

And what, finally, do Gus Dougherty's troubles mean for John Dougherty, his close, lifelong friend? In the candidate's own words, until the case is over, he'll "always have a little cloud over my head."

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Contact Monica Yant Kinney at myant@phillynews.com or 215-854-4670. Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/yantkinney.