Witness walks back testimony that Johnny Doc threatened to pull workers after nephew’s fight

For days, jurors in former labor leader John Dougherty’s extortion trial have sat through testimony exhaustively cataloging his nephew’s troubled work history, the man’s August 2020 assault on one of his bosses in a dispute over pay, and threats he allegedly made to punish the supervisors he felt had wronged him.

But so far, those testifying have had little to say about the actions of the ex-union chief himself.

In the moments after prosecutors say Greg Fiocca assaulted his supervisor at Live! Casino, an emotional John Dougherty called the union’s assistant business manager, asking him to go to the scene.

From the witness stand, James Foy — now the president of Local 98 — remembered the call. “He said the steward had gotten into a confrontation,” Foy said. Dougherty, he recalled “was aggravated and aggressive.”

When Raymond Palmieri, owner of the South Jersey-based electrical contractor on the Live! Casino project, called John Dougherty to complain the day the labor leader’s nephew attacked the project manager, Dougherty’s temper flared.

“He didn’t do it. F you, f you, f you, go back to New Jersey,” Palmieri recalled the labor leader shouting on the other line.

A key government witness told jurors Monday he feared he would suffer economically if he didn’t give John Dougherty what he wanted by continuing to employ his nephew after an August 2020 jobsite altercation amid construction of the Live! Casino and Hotel in South Philadelphia.

Ray Palmieri, the project’s electrical contractor, said when he learned of Greg Fiocca’s assault on Palmieri's project manager, Rich Gibson, during a dispute over pay, he immediately called Dougherty to complain.

An electrician who supervised Fiocca after the Aug. 19, 2020, blow-up with his boss testified that he was instructed to manage John Dougherty’s nephew differently than the other employees he oversaw.

Chris Carney, a subforeman on the Live! Casino project, told jurors that Greg Fiocca was transferred to his crew in October of that year, more than a month after he assaulted a supervisor on the project in a dispute over pay.

On cross-examination, government witness Fran Rothwein softened his testimony from earlier in the day that the union chief threatened to pull workers from the Live! Casino construction site after learning of an altercation between Greg Fiocca and one of the supervisors on the job.

Rothwein, one of two Local 98 foremen on the casino project, testified earlier that that threat was among several made by a “screaming” mad John Dougherty following the fight between his nephew and Rich Gibson, the project manager for the job site’s main electrical contractor, Ray Palmieri.

When John Dougherty called Fran Rothwein — one of the Local 98 foremen at the Live! Casino construction site — over his nephew’s docked wages in July 2020, the labor leader never demanded Greg Fiocca be paid for time he didn’t work, Rothwein testified under questioning from Fiocca’s attorney, Rocco Cipparone Jr.

And Dougherty, stressed Cipparone, never mentioned during that call that he spoke with his nephew about the docked check.

Greg Fiocca’s work attendance did not improve after his Aug. 19, 2020, altercation with one of his supervisors on the Live! Casino project, one of the project’s foremen testified.

Fran Rothwein said that after project manager Rich Gibson decided to dock Fiocca’s pay for missing work, prompting the blow-up between him and John Dougherty’s nephew, Fiocca continued to miss work often in the months that followed.

Just a week before Greg Fiocca’s violent argument with Rich Gibson, one of his supervisors on the Live! Casino site, another Local 98 member had been fired following a fiery confrontation.

Fran Rothwein, one of the union’s foremen on the project, told jurors he fired that electrician after the man aggressively came at him during a dispute over break times.

The Aug. 19, 2020, fight between Greg Fiocca and Rich Gibson, one of his supervisors at the Live! Casino construction site, wasn’t the first time Fiocca had exploded in anger after learning his wages had been docked — or that Dougherty took his nephew’s side in the dispute, one of the site’s foremen told jurors.

Fran Rothwein, one of the two Local 98 foremen on the site, said an indignant Fiocca confronted him a month before the fight with Gibson, after receiving another paycheck he considered to be too light.

John Dougherty threatened to pull all Local 98 electricians off the Live! Casino construction moments after a heated Aug. 19, 2020, altercation between Greg Fiocca and the project manager on the job, one of the site’s foremen testified Monday morning.

Testifying for a second day, Fran Rothwein, a longtime Local 98 electrician and one of two foremen on the casino job, described a tense phone call he had with the union chief in the hours after Fiocca confronted the project manager, Rich Gibson, in a dispute over pay.

And we’re back! The jury’s in the box, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Schmehl is on the bench, and witness Fran Rothwein, a Local 98 member and a foreman at the Live! Casino and Hotel project in 2020 is back on the witness stand.

When we left off Friday, Rothwein, under questioning from prosecutors, told jurors that supervisors at the site met several times with the Local 98 business agent whose jurisdiction included the casino to complain about issues with Greg Fiocca.

John Dougherty and Greg Fiocca will get their opportunity this week to put on any evidence they want the jury to hear before it begins its deliberations — that is, if they can get their potential witnesses to show up.

More than 25 people and organizations subpoenaed by the defense have filed motions in recent days asking the judge to excuse them from testifying or handing over documents sought by the defense.

The extortion trial of former Philadelphia labor leader John Dougherty and his nephew, Greg Fiocca, will resume Monday morning in Reading.

On Monday, prosecutors will continue to question Fran Rothwein, a longtime Local 98 electrician and one of Fiocca’s foremen at the Live! Casino construction project.

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.