Bobby Henon’s role in union dispute with Verizon focus of bribery trial testimony

In 2015, Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon plotted with a union official to publicly embarrass Verizon with Council hearings they hoped would pressure the telecommunications giant into making concessions in an ongoing labor dispute, federal wiretap recordings show.

But as the focus of his federal bribery trial shifted to that incident Wednesday, the question put before jurors was whether any of it was a crime.

Prosecutors maintain Henon’s assistance came at a price: $13,000 in campaign contributions they say he sought in exchange for his help from the Communication Workers of America. It is one of the few allegations in their bribery case against Henon that does not involve his codefendant, labor leader John Dougherty, head of the politically powerful Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical workers.

“CWA would give Councilman Henon a large contribution,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea Witzleben said in her opening remarks to jurors last week. “Henon would help CWA in a private labor negotiation with Verizon.”

» READ MORE: At trial, feds say Councilmember Bobby Henon sought campaign cash for helping a union in its spat with Verizon

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith

Through wiretapped calls and subpoenaed emails, prosecutors spent the rest of Wednesday afternoon illustrating Bobby Henon’s cozy connection with a local union official — and less-comfy correspondence with Verizon contacts — in 2016 as Verizon stayed locked in labor negotiations with the Communications Workers of America while facing a deadline to finish its buildout of fiber optic cable in Philadelphia.

They played calls from November 2015, a month after James Gardler, the president of local CWA informed Henon the union would contribute $5,000 to his campaign. Gardler believed Henon could hold hearings to apply pressure on Verizon to allow more concessions in CWA contract negotiation.

Telling Gardler “man, I had fun,” Henon called the union president on Nov. 18 after a meeting with Verizon employees about the franchise agreement and discussing the buildout. But talks in the meeting soon turned to a public hearing date — apparently to the surprise of the Verizon government affairs employee in attendance.

“I told him about the hearing and his, the color in his face changed,” Henon said.

”Good that’s exactly what we wanted to get out of him,” Gardler replied.

Four months later, on March 14, 2016, Henon sent a letter to Gardler, soliciting $5,000 more for his campaign. Gardler and the CWA ultimately sent $3,000 to Henon’s campaign for a March 2016 fundraising event hosted by major union leaders — including John Dougherty — at the Local 98 headquarters. The CWA’s check was made out to “Bobby 11.”

Prosecutors allege Henon asked for money from CWA in exchange for his help, while Henon’s defense asserts that there were real issues with the Verizon buildout and its treatment of employees that needed to be examined.

The government also played calls from April 2016, after union Verizon workers across the Northeast had gone on strike, as Henon and Gardler discussed preparations for the City Council hearing over the FiOs buildout.

“You can bring in the contract stuff,” Henon told Gardler. “The main concern is the buildout.”

Describing the T-shirts he had designed featuring a Liberty Bell and screw and “Verizon don’t screw Philly out of FiOS” slogan, Gardler told the council member days before the hearing of plans to bring dozens of picketing workers inside the chambers. “I don’t care if you get a 100 people, have them all come in with signs, fill the upstairs, fill the downstairs, doesn’t matter,” Henon replied.

Testimony from FBI Special Agent Jason Blake, more wiretapped calls and recordings, and cross-examination are expected to resume at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

— Oona Goodin-Smith

As the focus continued Wednesday afternoon on a 2016 Council hearing Bobby Henon hosted to question Verizon officials on the progress of the buildout of their FiOS network, prosecutors played a series of wiretapped phone conversations between the councilmember and a union official urging him to embarrass the company in public.

In late 2015, Verizon was locked in contentious labor negotiations with the Communications Workers of America and facing a February 2016 deadline to finish its work laying fiber-optic cable through the city.

James Gardler, president of the union’s local in Pennsylvania, believed that Henon could use the hearings to apply pressure that would shame the company into giving up concessions in CWA’s contract.

”We need to put some extra pressure on them with these contract negotiations, we’re going through,” Gardler told Henon in a September 2015 call. “And we can use this [a hearing] as some leverage to put some pressure on them.”

But while Henon did eventually hold a hearing in April 2016, the question for jurors is why.

Prosecutors contend he extorted bribes — in the form of campaign donations — from CWA in exchange for his help.

The defense counters that there were real questions about Verizon’s progress on the FiOS network and how it was treating its employees that deserved exploring.

Henon’s phone calls with Gardler show the issues of campaign cash and Verizon’s compliance with its deadlines were often intermingled.

In a call from October of that year, Gardler informed Henon that the union would be donating $5,000 to his campaign — a donation, he said, he was able to sell to the union’s PAC because “I know what I can ask Bobby to do for us.”

”What I need is,” Gardler continued, “I know we talked about the Verizon piece of it.”

Four days after CWA cut the check, Henon emailed staffers in his office asking them to remind him about scheduling a public hearing on Verizon.

— Jeremy Roebuck

Court is on lunch break and expected to resume at 1:30 p.m.

FBI Special Agent Jason Blake is expected to testify in the trial next.

— Oona Goodin-Smith

Continuing testimony Wednesday morning, Steven Robertson — deputy chief in the city’s Office of Innovation and Technology — recalled his version of events as Councilmember Bobby Henon and his staff pushed for a hearing over the city’s buildout of Verizon FiOS services amid a Verizon union worker strike in spring 2016.

Robertson said he suggested at the time having a meeting with Henon and others for an update on the buildout instead of a public hearing due to the confidentiality of Verizon’s information, and because — although he said all indications suggested the service provider was on track to have met its deadline of wiring up the city — Philadelphia’s tech officials would not be allowed to announce that publicly until testing was completed.

But to complete field testing on the seven-year cable buildout, union Verizon workers — who went on strike in mid-April 2016 over a breakdown in contract talks — were needed to accompany city employees, and so the process was stalled.

“We were a little taken aback,” Robertson testified when the resolution for the hearing on April 29, 2016, appeared in his inbox. At one point, he recalled telling a Henon staffer via phone that he thought it would be “stupid” to have the hearing before the city could release more complete data.

Still, Robertson said he and his office prepared their then-CIO, Charles Brennan, for hours each day to testify at the City Council hearing and answer questions about the strike.

”It was kind of like a fire drill,” Robertson said. “We were concerned the hearing had another purpose.”

On the day of the hearing, the official described Council chambers as “raucous” as striking Communication Workers of America members in red and white shirts and waving signs packed the room. He recalled feeling “a little unsettled by the environment” and irked by some comments made by councilmembers — including Henon — which he felt unfairly insinuated that the service provider was intentionally withholding information from the city, when instead, the numbers weren’t yet prepared.

After the hearing, Robertson testified, neither Henon nor his staff attempted to learn more about any delay in flow of information from Verizon.

But during cross-examination, Henon’s attorney, Brian J. McMonagle, pushed back on the notion that Henon alone asked incriminating questions of the city’s OIT chief during the hearing, emphasizing that other council members, too had been concerned. He also stressed that around the time of the hearing, New York City was facing its own problems with a Verizon buildout, and Philadelphia had reason to ask questions.

McMonagle too, noted that the union worker strike ended around a month after the hearing and public comment from those affected, and that the Verizon workers “got back to doing what needed to be done” as far as the city’s cable installation.

On Tuesday, a former Henon staffer testified he was pleased with his boss’ performance during the April hearing and that the Councilmember “stayed on script, he asked the right questions.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Separate from Dougherty, prosecutors have claimed Henon pressed Communications Workers of America for campaign donations in exchange for using his Council muscle to help the union negotiate with Verizon.

— Oona Goodin-Smith

The jury’s in the box. The judge is on the bench. And testimony has resumed for the day with Steven Robertson, a deputy chief in the city’s office of innovation and technology, continuing his testimony about events surrounding a proposed audit of Verizon’s buildout of FiOS services in Philadelphia.

In a bribery charges in the indictment, prosecutors allege that Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon sought to apply pressure Verizon in 2015 and 2016— grilling company representatives in public hearings and proposing audits — to assist the Communication Workers of America union in its labor negotiations with the company.

The government has accused Henon of extorting campaign contributions from CWA in exchange for that support. Henon has denied that accusation, characterizing his involvement with the Verizon affair as looking out for the best interests of the city and his communications with CWA officials as normal political fundraising activity.

— Jeremy Roebuck

As the trial enters its sixth day Wednesday, prosecutors are expected to present more testimony on one of the few acts of alleged bribery in their indictment that does not involve labor leader John Dougherty and call one the highest-placed Philly politicos yet to testify to the witness stand.

Richard Lazer, Mayor Jim Kenney’s deputy mayor for labor, is expected to testify later in the day.

Before that, the focus will likely remain — as it did Tuesday afternoon — on what the government has described as Councilmember Bobby Henon’s efforts between 2015 and 2016 to extort campaign contributions from the Communications Workers of America in exchange for helping them with a labor dispute with Verizon.

The day concluded with testimony from Steven Robertson, the deputy chief innovation officer and chief of staff with the city’s office of innovation and technology, who will return to the witness stand this morning.

So far, he has described, in detail, the measures taken for a seven-year Verizon buildout in the city, wiring FiOS services to all residents by 2016.

The government has alleged that a CWA official urged Henon to push for an audit of Verizon’s buildout project in 2015 because he thought it would help the union in its ongoing contract negotiations with the telecommunications giant.

The following year Henon and other councilmembers hosted a public hearing on the project packed with CWA union members.

Henon, however, insists he did nothing wrong and that the charges are a weak attempt to criminalize the traditional political fundraising process.

— Jeremy Roebuck

On Tuesday, jurors heard from Carlton Williams, the former head of the city’s Department of Licenses & Inspections, who described the active role Philadelphia Councilmember Bobby Henon played in forwarding complaints about potential code violations for inspectors to investigate.

Williams said labor leader John Dougherty once threatened he could have him replaced, while pressing L&I to investigate the construction of a controversial apartment building that had drawn the ire of the city’s labor unions.

The day also featured testimony from a former top deputy in Henon’s office, Chris Creelman, who described the “uncomfortable” atmosphere among the councilmember’s staffers in the weeks after the FBI raided his City Hall office as part of the Dougherty investigation.

» READ MORE: Philly’s ex-L&I chief described threatening behavior by John Dougherty as the labor leader’s bribery trial continued

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith

Federal prosecutors charged Dougherty, Henon, and six other Local 98 officials and allies in a 116-count indictment alleging bribery, embezzlement and a host of other crimes in January 2019. But last year, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl granted a defense request to split that case into two trials.

The first, which began last week, is focused solely on charges tied to the relationship between Dougherty and Henon. Each man faces 13 counts including conspiracy and honest services fraud. Henon faces an additional seven counts of honest services fraud and bribery.

In essence, the government is arguing that Dougherty bought himself a City Councilmember by continuing to pay Henon for a no-show, no-responsibility job with Local 98, even after he was in elected office. In exchange, prosecutors say, Henon allowed Dougherty to control his vote and the powers of his office on issues that mattered to Dougherty.

Both men have denied the charges. Their lawyers describe the case as a “feeble attempt at criminalizing the legislative process.” They argue that what the government describes as a criminal conspiracy is nothing more than the “normal and lawful lobbying of a City Councilmember” and that Henon was acting in order to advance the interests of his constituents.

Following jury selection and opening statements from both sides, prosecutors played wiretaps that showed Dougherty relied on Henon for help, which the defense claimed didn’t show the labor leader directly instructing the councilmember to do anything.

Last week, jurors heard from witnesses involved in Dougherty’s efforts in 2015 to stop nonunion contractors from installing MRI machines at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. On Tuesday, jurors heard from Carlton Williams, the former head of the city’s Department of Licenses & Inspections, who described the active role Henon played in forwarding complaints about potential code violations for inspectors to investigate.

Get up to speed on the case here:

— Staff reports

John Dougherty — known widely as “Johnny Doc” — is the longtime business manager of the politically influential Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and head of the Building and Construction Trades Council. He’s a kingmaker of Philadelphia City Hall, and a Pennsylvania political heavyweight.

In his nearly three decades leading Local 98, Dougherty, 61, has transformed the 4,700-member organization into a political powerhouse and the largest independent source of campaign money in the state. Union fund-raising and manpower have helped elect mayors — including Jim Kenney — as well as City Council members, county commissioners, members of Congress, state legislators, governors and more than 60 judges, including the union leader’s brother, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty.

He’s been an outspoken champion for organized labor in Philadelphia. His union is known for pitching inflatable rats at non-union picket lines and parking its “Rat-mobile” at worksites during labor disputes.

But he’s also found himself in the government’s crosshairs several times over the years — a state grand jury investigation, probes by the Philadelphia Board of Ethics, a 2006 investigation by the FBI — only to emerge unscathed.

Bobby Henon, 52, a three-term incumbent on City Council and its former majority leader, represents his native Northeast Philadelphia.

A former electrician who served as political director of Local 98 for more than a decade, he was elected to Council in 2011 on a wave of union money and support. Since then, the councilmember has also remained on the union’s payroll — earning a more than $70,000-per-year salary — in an untitled position reporting directly to Dougherty, while also collecting his $140,000 annual paycheck from City Hall.

— Oona Goodin-Smith and Jeremy Roebuck