Johnny Doc’s allies are facing prison time this week at sentencing hearings for stealing from Local 98

Some of ex-labor leader John Dougherty’s closest allies could be headed to federal prison if prosecutors get their way this week during sentencing hearings for three of his codefendants in his $600,000 union embezzlement case.

Michael Neill — a former top official at Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the union Dougherty led for nearly 30 years — will be first to face the judge on Tuesday. Government lawyers are pushing to put him behind bars for up to two years.

Marita Crawford, the union’s former political director, and Dougherty’s former assistant and driver, Niko Rodriguez, are set to learn their fates in the following days, with prosecutors recommending sentences of up to six months for both.

“Consciously, deliberately and over the course of several years” all three “abused the trust of union members by stealing from them to line [their] own pockets,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bea Witzleben and Frank Costello wrote in court filings last week urging U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl to impose significant prison terms.

But lawyers for each of the Dougherty codefendants aim to convince the judge that probation alone would provide punishment enough.

» READ MORE: Who’s who in former labor leader John Dougherty’s union embezzlement case

The sentencing hearings come as Dougherty — the man who transformed Local 98 from a once-sleepy union local into an electoral powerhouse and the state’s most powerful force for organized labor — is gearing up to face another trial on felony charges in March, his third in the span of as many years.

The first, in 2021, already sent former Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon to prison on bribery charges. Jurors in the second trial, which wrapped up in December, found Dougherty guilty of many of the same crimes for which Neill, Crawford, and Rodriguez will be sentenced this week.

But while those who stood by Dougherty for decades could be headed to prison, he remains free on bail. He won’t be sentenced until May at the earliest — after the conclusion of his next trial, Schmehl has said.

Still, this week’s hearings could deliver some insight into how severely the judge intends to punish Dougherty once his sentencing date arrives.

» READ MORE: John Dougherty trial: Day-by-day updates

For instance, the 3 ½-year sentence Schmehl gave Henon last year for selling the powers of his office to Dougherty in exchange for a $70,000-a-year union salary was less than half of the eight years prosecutors sought.

Should Schmehl’s sentences for Neill, 57, Crawford, 54, and Rodriguez, 32, also fall significantly below prosecutors’ recommendations, that could indicate the judge is open to giving Dougherty a similar break.

All four have been convicted of raiding Local 98′s coffers for years to pay for personal expenses ranging from pricey home repairs to mundane purchases of groceries and household goods.

But there are significant differences in the legal positions of Dougherty and his codefendants.

Neill, Crawford, and Rodriguez all pleaded guilty before trial — decisions they’ll receive credit for in the sentences they ultimately receive. And each of them was accused of stealing far less than Dougherty.

During Dougherty’s trial last year, prosecutors presented evidence showing the former labor leader routinely rang up personal expenses on his Local 98 credit cards, billed union accounts for home repairs worth tens of thousands of dollars, and put family members on the payroll, often paying them for work they did not do.

» READ MORE: Johnny Doc spent thousands on his friends and family with Local 98 money. Here’s what he bought.

What’s more, as the longtime head of the union, government lawyers argued, he bore greater responsibility for the money Local 98′s members contributed from their earnings and entrusted him to manage.

In Crawford’s case, by contrast, prosecutors are seeking to hold her responsible for less than $12,000 in misspent funds — money that went toward expenses like birthday dinners, hair and makeup services, and a hotel stay during a trip to watch the 2015 Belmont Stakes.

They also acknowledged that in many instances, it was Dougherty, with whom Crawford was romantically involved at the time, who instructed her to bill the costs to the union.

Rodriguez, meanwhile, has admitted to spending much of his workday at Local 98 running personal errands for Dougherty and using the labor leader’s union card to buy more than $1,000 of items for himself, including groceries, home goods, baby supplies, Christmas decorations, and a mattress.

Though they did not excuse Rodriguez’s crimes, prosecutors, in their sentencing recommendation last week, all but put the blame for them on Dougherty’s shoulders.

“Rodriguez was a young man with an unblemished record who was likely under the sway of … Dougherty, a man who was not only the uncle of a childhood friend, but the powerful head of a powerful union,” they said, asking Schmehl to sentence him somewhere on the low-end of a range of zero to six months.

Of the three, Neill, the former head of Local 98′s apprentice training program, stands apart — both for the more significant leadership role he held within the union and the amount of money he’s admitted to stealing from his members.

He’s acknowledged spending nearly $93,000 of union cash to pay for repairs to his South Philadelphia home, a building he co-owned with Local 98′s former president Brian Burrows, and Doc’s Union Pub, a Pennsport bar in which he, Burrows, and Dougherty held a financial interest.

He also billed the union for renovations at the home of his secretary, with whom he was romantically involved, witnesses testified at Dougherty’s trial.

And yet, he is facing sentencing for only the six counts of union embezzlement, tax fraud, and theft from a union employee benefit plan to which he pleaded guilty in 2022, limiting his recommended punishment range under federal sentencing guidelines to 18 to 24 months.

Dougherty, meanwhile, will have been convicted of at least 74 felony counts, including those from the embezzlement scheme and his bribery case with Henon when it comes time for his sentencing in May. And that number could grow, depending on the outcome of his March trial, in which he faces 20 more counts including conspiracy and extortion.

“There is no need to imprison Mr. Neill,” his attorney Joseph P. Capone wrote in a memo to the judge Friday. “His lone foray into criminal conduct is … only an isolated occurrence.”

Like lawyers for Crawford and Rodriguez, Capone has urged Schmehl to let his client off with no prison time at all, arguing that the publicity and collateral consequences of their convictions have already punished them enough.

All three have submitted dozens of letters from family members, fellow union members, and supporters attesting to their otherwise good characters and their commitment to community service.

Among those who have pledged their support are some notable names, including City Councilmember Michael Driscoll, who was elected to replace Henon in 2022, and former Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery, who stepped down from his post in 2014 following a pornographic email scandal.

McCaffery wrote Schmehl to vouch for Crawford’s lifelong commitment to strengthening the representation of organized labor in Pennsylvania politics.

“Her hard work and dedication to ensure political victories for candidates who share her solid blue-collar, working-class values,” McCaffery said, “has helped shape Pennsylvania’s landscape for decades to come.”

She and the others will find out later this week just how much weight such words hold with the judge deciding their fate.