‘You are still a liar’: Defense attacks key government witness in John Dougherty’s embezzlement trial
Piece by piece, defense lawyers sought to undermine contractor Anthony Massa's testimony during cross-examination Tuesday, hoping to discredit him in front of the jury that will decide the case.
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Across two days on the stand, a key government witness in the federal embezzlement trial of John Dougherty has testified that the former labor leader and his family received years of free home repair work worth thousands of dollars because his union footed the bills.
But as defense lawyers got their first crack at contractor Anthony Massa on Tuesday, they came ready to perform some demolition work of their own.
Piece by piece, lawyers for Dougherty and his codefendant — Brian Burrows, former president of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — attacked Massa’s story, seeking to discredit him as a “fraudster and a liar” in front of the jury that will ultimately render a verdict in the case.
Dougherty, the ex-union leader’s lawyer Greg Pagano insisted, had no idea Massa was billing the union for work done on the private residences. Massa, Pagano maintained, had never bothered to tell him.
“You never told Mr. Dougherty about any of the bills,” he said, “because he presumed you were doing that work for free.”
Lawyers for Burrows, meanwhile, accused Massa of lying — agreeing to go along with prosecutors’ version of events in hopes of sparing himself a lengthy prison term after pleading guilty to his own charges in the case.
“You are still a liar, are you not?” Burrows’ lawyer Thomas A. Bergstrom challenged him.
But throughout it all, the mild-mannered, 69-year-old carpenter — who has been escorted into court each day in a wheelchair pushed by an FBI agent — stood firm.
“I’m telling you,” Massa insisted at one point during that defense barrage. “Anything that was done at Mr. Dougherty’s house, I was told by Brian Burrows to go through [the union].”
Still, he nervously acknowledged under questioning from the government: “I hope I’m not going to jail.”
The contractor’s testimony — which has played out during the second week of the ex-union officials’ trial — is central to the government’s case that Dougherty, Burrows and other union members stole more than $600,000 of Local 98′s money and used it to enrich themselves and their families.
Massa, who was initially charged alongside them with conspiring to defraud Local 98, pleaded guilty in 2020 and is the only one of the five codefendants also indicted to agree to testify against the others.
And as prosecutors told it, the contracting work his company performed on the personal residences of Burrows, Dougherty, and Dougherty’s family between 2010 and 2016 was by far the largest expense paid for with Local 98 money.
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In 2010, for instance, Massa’s firm carried out a complete remodel of Burrows’ primary bathroom and installed a walk-in closet at the union leader’s Mount Laurel home.
The total cost of that work, according to Massa: more than $30,000.
He said Burrows told him to hide the charge for that job in a $50,000 invoice he sent Local 98 that year for work on other projects.
Massa said he also performed more than $35,000 of work at Dougherty’s home on Moyamensing Avenue in Pennsport — jobs that included leak repair, mold remediation, and drywall installation between 2010 and 2016.
Never once, the contractor told the jury, did Dougherty ever ask how much he owed.
In addition, Massa’s company oversaw renovations at homes owned by Dougherty’s father, John Sr.; daughter, Erin; sister, Maureen Fiocca; and brother, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty — all of which were eventually paid for by Local 98.
He maintained he’d been instructed by Burrows to hide the cost of all of that work by padding invoices he sent to Local 98 for other jobs he was simultaneously doing for the union.
“Brian Burrows was the guy who told me what to do,” the contractor said.
But during his cross-examination of Massa, Pagano sought to put distance between Dougherty and those instructions from Burrows. Again and again, the defense lawyer insisted that Dougherty had no idea where the contractor was sending his bills.
In Dougherty’s mind, Pagano said, Massa was performing the work for free as a token of gratitude for the $1.8 million in work Dougherty’s union had steered his way during the period covered by the indictment.
In 2016 alone, Massa estimated, work connected to the union accounted for nearly 90% of his company’s revenue.
As for why he never wondered why Dougherty never asked him for a bill for the work done on his Pennsport home, the contractor replied: “I can’t answer that.”
Meanwhile, Burrows’ attorney, Bergstrom, challenged Massa’s account of the 2010 bathroom remodeling job.
It wasn’t the union that paid for that work, the defense lawyer said. Burrows and his wife had cut Massa a $3,225 check.
But Massa shot back, contending that Burrows had instructed him to send that separate, minimal invoice. He said earlier that he was told to defer the additional tens of thousands of dollars the job had actually cost until his next invoice to Local 98.
“I didn’t do this on my own,” the contractor said. “I was instructed to do it this way.”
Despite his calm demeanor during much of his testimony, Massa at times showed flashes of exasperation — especially as Bergstrom noted that he had at first lied to the FBI when confronted about his fraudulent billing in 2016.
In an audio recording of that interview with agents, Massa initially told them that he agreed to conduct the work for Burrows, Dougherty, and Dougherty’s relatives for free.
“I do a lot of work for 98,” he said on the tape played for jurors Tuesday. “I didn’t think it was a crime.”
As for Dougherty, Massa added: “He does more for people that anybody even knows. I just admire the man — his foresight. He’s just a tremendous person.”