Nurse swept up in Johnny Doc probe pleads guilty to pandemic unemployment fraud

Donna Mangini, 35, admitted that she was being paid roughly $5,500 a month to care for Dougherty’s ailing wife, Cecilia, when she first applied for unemployment benefits in May 2020.

John Dougherty, the former head of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, speaking to reporters outside the union's headquarters in October 2021.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer

by Jeremy Roebuck

Published Sept. 8, 2022, 1:01 p.m. ET

A home nurse swept up in the federal government’s yearslong investigation into former labor leader John J. Dougherty pleaded guilty Thursday to fraudulently collecting pandemic unemployment checks while working in his home.

Donna Mangini, 35, of South Philadelphia, admitted that she was being paid roughly $5,500 a month to care for Dougherty’s ailing wife, Cecilia, when she first applied for unemployment benefits in May 2020.

Prosecutors initially accused her of illegally accepting more than $14,500 in benefits between May and June of that year, but they reduced the amount to $540 as part of a plea agreement that required her to pay more than $34,000 in restitution.

Dougherty, a political power broker in Pennsylvania and onetime head of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, has not been accused of wrongdoing in Mangini’s case.

But her crimes first came to light as federal investigators combed through nearly all aspects of Dougherty’s life — an effort that resulted in multiple indictments against him and others.

Mangini said little about her own case in court Thursday as U.S. District Judge John R. Padova walked her through a series of standard questions before accepting her plea.

Her deal required her to plead guilty to one misdemeanor count of theft of public funds, and reduced the maximum prison term she faces from decades to no more than one year.

It was not clear Thursday whether the agreement required her to cooperate with prosecutors’ ongoing cases against Dougherty.

He remains under indictment and faces two trials on allegations that he threatened a union contractor who tried to fire his nephew and that he and others embezzled more than $600,000 from the union he once led.

Dougherty resigned his position as head of that union last year, after a federal jury convicted him on bribery charges involving former Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon.

Both men await sentencing in that case. Dougherty’s next trial is scheduled for January.