Local 98 jobs and renovations paid for by the union are focus of John Dougherty embezzlement trial testimony

Throughout the rest of the afternoon, prosecutors called a stream of union members and employees to the stand, including:

Hamilton testified that twice a week during his morning shifts, he stopped at Doc’s Union Pub — the a now-shuttered bar privately owned by Burrows and Neill — to clean, take inventory, and make liquor runs. “Who paid you for that time?” prosecutors asked. “Local 98,” he responded.

Occasionally, Hamilton said he would work the bar, but that others bartended more regularly than him. Burrows’ attorney, Mark A. Kasten, underscored Hamilton’s testimony that it was Neill who provided Hamilton most directions at the bar, and not Burrows.

On Thursday, prosecutors showed tax filings from the Pennsport bar did not report paying salaries to anyone who worked there.

Gummel testified that he became a member of the union’s executive board in 2014, after telling Dougherty he wished to become more involved with Local 98.

“I love the union, it’s given me everything I have, and I just wanted to get more involved,” he said. Gummel said he resigned from the post in 2020.

At their weekly meetings, which Gummel said lasted around half an hour, the board did little around approving financial statements or vouchers as the meeting minutes claimed. Sometimes, Gummel said, the board passed around financial records, including “transactions that had already transpired.”

“I just read them and passed them on,” he said. Burrows typically presided over the meetings, he said, and he didn’t recall seeing Dougherty at the meetings before 2016.

The account was similar to what jurors heard Thursday from the board’s former recording secretary, who also testified that the board provided little scrutiny over how union money was spent.

Testimony is expected to continue Monday morning, with Robert Gormley, a Local 98 business agent and executive board member, on the stand.

— Oona Goodin-Smith

Prosecutors next called to the stand Keeley Peltz, who also worked for Local 98 for years while she was attended college.

Peltz, a close family friend of Dougherty’s, is the daughter of George J. Peltz — a New Jersey contractor who pleaded guilty in 2019 to providing Dougherty with nearly $57,000 in home and office improvements between 2012 and 2015. George Peltz at the time told the court that he offered his company’s free services because Dougherty steered more than $3 million in work to his firm, MJK Electric, and hired a member of his family as an employee. His lawyer at the time maintained that the home improvements were gifts to people he considered as close as family.

Keeley Peltz testified that she worked for the union from around 2012 to 2016, and worked full-time in Local 98′s main offices in 2014, doing “secretarial work and anything anyone needed me to do.”

Prosecutors have alleged she was paid thousands in extra money for work they say she did not perform, writing paychecks for 40 hours each week although she attended college in Reading at least twice weekly.

But Peltz told the jury she didn’t recall being told she was getting extra money or being paid double. And she said she didn’t recall working more than 40 hours in a week, other than when Pope Francis visited the city in 2015.

Dougherty’s attorney, Gregory Pagano, stressed that Peltz and others in Local 98′s office were involved with time-consuming preparations leading up with the visit, and worked through the weekend.

He showed the jury text messages showing Peltz worked at union offices on Saturdays, and pointed out that she worked extra hours around the holidays on turkey giveaways and wrapping gifts for children, suggesting that she worked outside the typical work week.

“Is it fair to say this was not a 9-to-5 conventional job?” he asked.

“That is a fair statement,” she said.

— Oona Goodin-Smith

Next on the witness stand: Maureen T. Fiocca, Dougherty’s niece and the first of the former labor leader’s family members to testify.

Appearing uneasy as prosecutors asked preliminary questions, Fiocca took several deep breaths before continuing. She addressed the jury under a court order compelling her testimony after she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Costello asked Fiocca, 29, to remember back to 2015, when she was a standout basketball star at Arcadia University.

That summer, Fiocca and a teammate on the Arcadia University women’s team were asked to participate in a week-long trip to Costa Rica, where they would play in a basketball tournament and provide clinics for local children.

Fiocca and her teammate couldn’t afford the pricey trip on their own, and so her mother, she said, created a GoFundMe to pay their way. They later learned that was in violation of NCAA rules, and had to do community service in order to be eligible for the coming season.

“Do you know who paid for the trip?” Costello asked.

“No,” Fiocca responded, adding that it was not her. She said she did not know whether her teammate paid, either. (Fiocca has nearly the same name as her mother, who is Dougherty’s sister, the younger Maureen Fiocca explained.)

In their indictment, prosecutors allege around $4,000 from Local 98′s Job Recovery Fund went toward the Costa Rica basketball trip.

“Well, who [else are] they gonna go to?” Dougherty asked in a recorded conversation featured in the indictment. “They’re gonna go to me.”

The government then turned its sights to Fiocca’s employment at Local 98 — a job in which prosecutors allege Dougherty arranged for her and other family members to be paid for work they did not do, and that Dougherty continued to pay her after she returned to classes.

They showed jurors texts between Dougherty and his niece, where she kept him apprised of her schedule, which also included basketball workouts and an internship with a youth program.

The gig at Local 98 “was a summer job,” Fiocca explained. “Whatever they needed me to do, I did.”

Those tasks, she said, included everything from filing paperwork to cleaning offices at the union’s headquarters. Around the holidays, she helped with wrapping presents for Toys for Tots and assisting with a holiday turkey drive, she told the jury. Fiocca said she couldn’t remember the start date or end date of her employment at the union, and that she didn’t necessarily keep track of her hours.

Her uncle, seated at the defense table in the courtroom, would call on her to work on nights or weekends, she added. “It wasn’t a 9-to-5.”

— Oona Goodin-Smith

Dougherty paid a Local 98 consultant $5,000 in union money to accompany his then-mistress on a personal trip to Florida in 2016, prosecutors alleged while questioning their next witness in the case.

But John Cooper – who occasionally did political work for the union and introduced himself to the jury as a longtime friend of Marita Crawford’s – didn’t exactly see it that way.

“I never got paid for anything I didn’t work for,” he said. “I don’t believe I said I got paid to accompany Ms. Crawford – I just don’t.”

The 2016 trip in which Crawford – the union’s former political director with whom Dougherty has acknowledged he was having an affair at the time – traveled with Cooper and her son, Tommy Rodriguez, is one of the many instances of what prosecutors describe as Dougherty stealing Local 98 money to pay for his personal expenses.

Cooper addressed the jury Thursday under a court order compelling his testimony after he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

He sat visibly uneasy on the witness stand as prosecutors played recordings of wiretapped phone calls between him and Crawford leading up to that trip.

And despite Cooper’s protestations that prosecutors had got it all wrong, the calls showed that, at the time, he was uncomfortable with Dougherty’s insistence he accept the $5,000 check.

“Johnny talked to me today … because he wants somebody to go with you,” Cooper told Crawford in a May 2016 recording. “He’s got another check for me for five grand.”

In a separate phone call, Cooper asked Crawford to stop Dougherty from paying him for escorting her.

“I don’t want nothing else,” he said.

Crawford, resigned, explained that Dougherty was going to do whatever he’d made up his mind to do.

“Listen, he’s my boss. You have no say in the matter,” she told Cooper. “Whatever, if he doesn’t do it or he does.”

Days after the trip, Local 98 cut Cooper a check for $5,000 with a memo line saying the payment was for Cooper’s involvement in the union’s work on the 2016 Democratic primary.

However, the invoice billing for that supposed campaign work by Cooper, was drafted by one of Crawford’s assistants, days after the check had already been drawn up and paid.

During cross-examination, Dougherty’s attorney, Greg Pagano, asked Cooper whether there was ever a time he had wanted more pay for his work in Local 98′s political operation. Cooper agreed.

And, the lawyer noted, Cooper had plans to go to Florida with Crawford before the call from Dougherty. Cooper said he and Crawford enjoyed golfing together, and in the past had traveled together to Puerto Rico and the Jersey Shore.

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith

As Special Agent Jason Blake, the FBI’s lead investigator on the case, wrapped up his latest stint on the witness stand this morning, prosecutors sought to underline one key point.

Earlier, defense lawyers had sought to suggest that contractor Anthony Massa – a key government witness who testified he was paid by Local 98 for home renovations he completed on Dougherty’s and Burrows’ personal residences – had been padding his bills.

They’ve accused him charging the ex-union leaders for man-hours and materials’ costs above what those jobs required as well as personal purchases like a decorative snowman he bought during one trip to Lowe’s in which he also bought supplies for a job he was overseeing.

But as Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Grenell got another opportunity to question the agent, he injected some skepticism into that line of questioning – reminding jurors that regardless of what Massa had done with his billing, it didn’t explain why Dougherty and Burrows were paying for work on their homes with union money.

“Let’s say Mr. Massa inflated those numbers by 75 percent,” Grenell asked Blake, “that’s still embezzlement?

“And if Anthony Massa was putting stuff on a card that was personal and billing it to a client,” Grenell continued, alluding to similar personal credit card charges that Dougherty is currently on trial for making with Local 98 funds, “that’s embezzlement? You shouldn’t do that?”

Blake responded: “That’s correct.”

— Jeremy Roebuck

The judge is on the bench, the jury is in the box, and FBI Special Agent Jason Blake is on the witness stand in the 10th day of the federal embezzlement trial of former labor leader John Dougherty.

Thomas Bergstrom, defense attorney for former Local 98 president Brian Burrows, began the day by grilling Blake over the FBI’s handwriting and fingerprint analysis over notes and invoices written by contractor Anthony Massa.

Massa testified earlier this week that it was Burrows who scribbled numbers on the carpenter’s invoice notes, directing Massa where in the union to bill his work on the homes and businesses of Burrows, Dougherty, and Dougherty’s family.

The tests came back inconclusive, Blake said yesterday, and analysts could only identify the fingerprints of the FBI agents who handled the documents since a government raid on Massa’s home in 2016.

— Oona Goodin-Smith

More testimony is expected Friday from FBI Special Agent Jason Blake, the bureau’s lead investigator in the case.

With Blake on the stand Thursday, prosecutors displayed for jurors a breakdown — based on contractor Anthony Massa’s notes recording his employees’ hours and where they worked — an estimation of labor over a six-year span that totaled $338,000 in repairs and renovations to the homes and personal properties of Brian Burrows, John Dougherty, and their friends and family, mostly paid for by Local 98.

Prosecutors on Thursday walked Blake through a collection of invoices and Massa’s notes that documented his company’s work on on union properties, the homes, and other buildings — including Doc’s Union Pub — and investigators’ efforts to determine who paid for the work. Blake also described the FBI’s efforts to confirm Massa’s information.

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith

Throughout their federal embezzlement trial, ex-labor leaders John Dougherty and Brian Burrows have challenged accusations that they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the union they once led by pointing to the auditors, accountants, and other recordkeepers who annually reviewed its finances and flagged no significant issues.

But as the proceedings entered their ninth day Thursday, prosecutors aimed to expose those safeguards as little more than rubber-stamps.

Michael Mascuilli — former recording secretary for the executive board of Dougherty’s and Burrows’ union, Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — told jurors the board provided next to no scrutiny over how union money was spent.

Instead, he said, at their meetings — which included Dougherty, Local 98′s business manager, and Burrows, its then-president — members merely signed off on bills that Burrows told them had already been paid.

“In hindsight, I guess I could say that was incorrect,” Mascuilli said. “But at the time, I didn’t knowingly know.”

As prosecutors tell it, those bills included invoices with thousands of dollars-worth of inflated expenses from a contractor who regularly performed repair and renovation work on Local 98-owned buildings.

» READ MORE: ‘In hindsight ... that was incorrect:’ Scrutiny shifts to oversight of Local 98′s spending at Johnny Doc trial

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith

As former labor leader John J. Dougherty offered in 2015 to use union funds to pick up the tab for a gym membership worth thousands of dollars for his brother, Kevin Dougherty, then a candidate for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, he presented a striking explanation for his generosity.

“I got a different world than most people ever exist in,” John Dougherty said in a conversation caught on an FBI wiretap. “I am able to take care of a lot of people all the time.”

Especially his family.

Whether it was a $125 birthday cake from Termini Bros. Bakery for his dad’s 81st birthday, a $19,882 security system and large-screen TVs for his daughter, or nearly $8,000 spent on mundane household goods like dog food, cereal, clothing, and makeup from Target, prosecutors say John Dougherty was unstinting in showering benefits on family members, his inner circle, and himself.

Almost all of it, government lawyers maintain, was paid for by money embezzled from the union John Dougherty led for nearly 30 years, Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

In all, he and five other union officials and members are charged with stealing more than $654,000 from the local and its political action committee between 2010 and 2016.

Here’s a look at where prosecutors say some of that money went and who benefitted.

» READ MORE: What Johnny Doc allegedly bought with Local 98′s money: Concert tickets, pricey restaurant meals, and $8,000 of stuff from Target

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith

Seven defendants, five plea agreements, more than 100 counts, and over $600,000 in allegedly embezzled union cash are at the center of the case set to play out starting this week as former Philadelphia labor leader John J. Dougherty stands trial, accused of stealing from Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the titan of a union he led for nearly 30 years.

But prosecutors say he did not act alone. Dougherty and six others are charged in the embezzlement scheme, while prosecutors say others in their orbit benefitted from the cash siphoned from the union between 2010 and 2016.

Here’s what you need to know about the players in the case.

» READ MORE: Key players in the John Dougherty embezzlement case

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith

For the second time in two years, former labor leader John J. Dougherty is set to appear before a federal jury in Philadelphia, this time on charges that he and others embezzled more than $600,000 from Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the politically powerful union he once led.

Both Dougherty and Brian Burrows — the former Local 98 president and Dougherty’s codefendant — face substantial prison time if convicted. But the trial, expected to last weeks, also may recast Dougherty’s legacy during his 30 years as a one-man center of gravity of organized labor, politics, and Philadelphia’s civic life.

Dougherty has repeatedly defended his actions, saying everything he did was to benefit his members, but prosecutors contend he was stealing from them all along.

Here's what to know about Dougherty, Burrows, the charges, and everything else about the case.

» READ MORE: Former Local 98 leader John Dougherty is on trial again, this time for embezzling from his union. Here’s what you need to know.

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith