Ex-Philly Councilmember Bobby Henon sentenced to 3½ years in union bribery case

Former Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon was sentenced to 3½ years in federal prison Wednesday — a punishment the judge said he had earned through actions that “exposed the dirty underbelly of how Philadelphia politics works.”

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl described the three-term Democrat, who resigned his post after his 2021 conviction, as “a good man who [was] convicted of doing a bad thing.”

Still, the judge said, Henon, 54, deserved a prison term for selling the powers of his office to labor leader John J. Dougherty in exchange for a $70,000-a-year salary from his politically powerful union.

“The people of Philadelphia thought they were electing a councilman,” Schmehl said. “But instead they were electing a minion for John Dougherty and Local 98 [of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers]. That is clearly not what the city bargained for.”

» READ MORE: As it happened: Ex-Philly City Councilmember Bobby Henon sentenced to 3½ years in prison

Henon choked back tears as he told the judge he had never viewed that paycheck as a bribe but was ready to accept responsibility for his crimes. And despite the judge’s harsh words, the sentence Schmehl eventually imposed was less than half of the eight to 10 years requested by prosecutors and recommended under federal sentencing guidelines.

“I tried my best to help every Philadelphian, especially those who were vulnerable and those in need — please know, I never took a day off,” Henon said moments before his punishment was announced. “By putting the interest of my union first, I failed you.”

Wednesday’s hearing delivered an ignominious end to Henon’s career in elected office and organized labor — both of which he’d shown an affinity for from a young age and both of which, due to his conviction, he is now barred from participating in in the future.

» READ MORE: Former City Councilmember Bobby Henon's bribery sentence. Here’s what you should know.

And yet, as he sat at the defense table next to his lawyer, Brian J. McMonagle, the courtroom behind him was packed with family members, friends, and constituents from his former Northeast Philadelphia district — several of whom testified about Henon’s dedication to his community and family, his hands-on work with food and diaper drives during the pandemic, and his frequent calls to check in on those in need.

Many of them audibly exhaled as the judge announced the sentence. One man made the sign of the cross.

“He’s a great person. I wish you would consider this Bobby Henon who we know and love,” longtime AFL-CIO president Pat Eiding told the judge. “Coming from the neighborhoods I come from, Kensington, we would call Bobby ‘real people.’”

The son of a union electrician who grew up in largely blue-collar Wissinoming, Henon ended his first campaign — for class vice president at North Catholic High School — in victory. And he became a Democratic committeeperson at 19, when his father signed him up without telling him.

» READ MORE: How Henon’s sentence compares with other bribery cases

Henon also followed in his father’s professional footsteps, joining Local 98 as a seasonal worker and rising through the ranks from apprentice to foreman to business agent.

He served as the union’s political director from 1999 until his election to Council in 2011 — a period that coincided with Dougherty’s transformation of what was once a relatively small local into the most politically potent union in the city and the state’s largest source of independent campaign cash.

But Henon’s relationship with the union leader would eventually lead to his undoing.

A federal jury convicted Henon in 2021 on 10 counts including conspiracy, bribery, and honest services fraud, finding that the $70,000 annual salary Local 98 continued to pay him once he was on Council amounted to a bribe.

At trial, prosecutors portrayed him as Dougherty’s puppet — swept into office on a wave of Local 98 manpower and money, controlled by his union paycheck and then used as a vise to squeeze Dougherty’s personal and professional enemies.

» READ MORE: The rise of Councilman Henon, from electrician to majority leader

When a tow-truck driver tried to haul away his car in 2015, Dougherty vowed before the truck had even left the parking lot that Henon would introduce legislation the next day to investigate the company for predatory practices.

That same year — while running to lead the Building Trades Council, an umbrella group of the city’s labor unions — Dougherty pushed Henon to propose legislation to update the city’s plumbing code in ways he knew would hurt that industry’s union, which was opposing the labor leader’s candidacy.

The jury also found that Henon, at Dougherty’s urging, used his sway at the Department of Licenses & Inspections to stop nonunion workers from installing MRI machines at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

And as Local 98 and Comcast feuded in 2016 over the amount of work the cable giant was sending the union’s way, Henon took steps to hold up Council’s renewal of the company’s 15-year franchise agreement with the city.

“Over 18 months of recorded conversations between the defendant and his codefendant John Dougherty there was not a single instance in which Mr. Henon said no to him,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank R. Costello Jr. said in court Wednesday.

Costello’s cocounsel Bea Witzleben balked at defense arguments that Henon should be spared prison for the work he had put in for his constituents over the years.

“People in public life are supposed to do good things for their constituents,” she said. “But this type of corruption tears at the fabric of our democracy, which is about the people believing that their elected representatives work for them, and not other private interests they might have a public deal with.”

That said, other elected officials who worked most closely with Henon throughout his career had little to say Wednesday about the sentence. Mayor Jim Kenney and Council President Darrell L. Clarke declined to comment, as did Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson, who was acquitted in his own federal bribery case last year.

Councilmember Mike Driscoll, who was elected to fill Henon’s seat after his resignation and who attended Wednesday’s hearing, said he was glad for Henon and his family that the legal proceedings were over.

In addition to his prison sentence, Henon was ordered to serve three years’ probation upon his release and forfeit $207,000 — a sum equal to the benefits he received from Dougherty and Local 98.

Dougherty, who faces a second trial next month on charges he and others embezzled more than $600,000 from their union, has not been sentenced yet in the bribery case.

As Henon left the courthouse Wednesday — under orders to turn himself in to start his sentence on April 17 — reporters outside asked if he regretted his involvement with Dougherty.

The onetime councilmember simply smiled.

“Thank you,” he said, stepping away from the microphone.

Staff writer Max Marin contributed to this article.