Former Philly Councilmember Bobby Henon’s bribery conviction upheld by federal appeals court

Former Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon’s bid to overturn his 2021 bribery conviction fell short Wednesday, as a federal appeals court rejected his contention that prosecutors had failed to fully prove their case.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found that jurors had been presented with enough evidence to conclude that the former Council majority leader sold the powers of his office to labor leader John Dougherty in exchange for a $70,000-a-year salary from his politically powerful union, Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Though the councilmember had argued that the government should have been required to prove that he and Dougherty had an explicit agreement that Henon would use the powers of his office to benefit Local 98 in exchange for those paychecks, the appellate court disagreed; an implicit understanding was enough.

What’s more, the appellate judges concluded, Henon failed to raise the issue at trial, limiting the extent to which they could consider his argument on appeal.

“Because we see no clear error in the district court permitting proof of an implicit agreement [between Henon and Dougherty], we will affirm” the conviction, Circuit Judge Cindy K. Chung wrote for the panel, which also included Circuit Judges Cheryl A. Krause and Thomas L. Ambro.

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

Henon’s attorneys, Bruce Merenstein, Robert Welsh, and Richard Walk III, declined to comment on the ruling Thursday.

Henon, 55, remains incarcerated at a federal detention center in Lewisburg, Pa., where he is serving a 3½-year sentence and was unavailable for comment.

The Third Circuit’s decision increases the odds that he’ll end up serving the full length of that term until his projected release date in January 2026. But it could also spell trouble for Dougherty, who was convicted alongside the councilmember after their two-month trial and awaits sentencing in July on that case as well as charges he and others embezzled more than $600,000 from their union.

From the day of the jury’s verdict, Dougherty has confidently predicted that the bribery case would be overturned on appeal, saying prosecutors had unfairly criticized “how business and politics are typically and properly conducted” in Philadelphia.

Though the ex-union chief has not yet filed his own appeal and has not formally specified the grounds on which he intends to challenge the case, the Third Circuit’s ruling on Henon could cut off some avenues he might have pursued. (Dougherty’s lawyers, in court, have raised other possible grounds on which he might appeal that are unique to his case, including the government’s use of a confidential informant from within his union to secretly record his conversations for months after he was indicted in 2019.)

The appellate judges, meanwhile, quickly dispensed with Henon’s claims. They opted not to hear oral arguments in the case earlier this year and the nonprecedential opinion they filed Wednesday took up only eight pages.

Prosecutors painted Henon, a union electrician, as little more than Dougherty’s puppet — swept into office in 2011 on a wave of union manpower and money, controlled by the Local 98 paycheck he received for little to no work, and then used as a vise to squeeze Dougherty’s personal and professional enemies.

But in his appeal, Henon maintained that because Council rules allow members to hold outside employment and don’t bar them from voting on matters in which their employers may have an interest, the government needed to prove that Henon and Dougherty had an explicit agreement that he was being paid by Local 98 to take official actions to benefit the union and its chief.

» READ MORE: Wiretaps show John Dougherty repeatedly relied on Councilmember Henon for help. But did he have to ask?

“The government did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Henon explicitly promised to take any particular official acts because of his Local 98 compensation,” his attorneys wrote in their briefs to the appellate court.

The Third Circuit judges concluded, however, that the government did not need to prove that Henon and Dougherty ever had a clear-cut discussion about what the money was for and that prosecutors had presented plenty of evidence for a jury to conclude that both men had an implicit understanding of what was required of Henon in exchange for his pay.

» READ MORE: A juror in the Dougherty-Henon trial says it was a lesson in Philly government — ‘and it was appalling’

The court cited recent rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court requiring proof of a more explicit agreement only in corruption cases in which bribes come in the form of campaign contributions.

But even on that front, the Third Circuit held, the government had done enough to secure a conviction in Henon’s case.

In addition to the charges involving Dougherty, jurors convicted Henon in a separate bribery scheme tied to public hearings he convened in 2015 to investigate a labor dispute between Verizon and members of Local 13000 of the Communication Workers of America.

Wiretapped phone calls played at trial revealed that the union’s head, Jim Gardler, had asked Henon to organize the hearing, hoping it would put public pressure on the communications giant.

Henon, on the same calls, asked Gardler for campaign cash — a request fulfilled days later with a $5,000 check from CWA.

Gardler said he sold the donation to his board by saying he knew “what I can ask Bobby to do for us.”

“What I need,” he continued, “is … the Verizon piece of it.”

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

That comment, Chung wrote in the Third Circuit’s opinion this week, laid bare the explicit nature of the understanding between the two men. If Gardler donated to Henon’s campaign, he’d get the hearing he wanted to help his labor dispute.

“While Henon argues that the jury should have weighed the evidence differently,” the judge wrote, “we will not disturb a jury’s conclusion merely because it could have reached an alternative one.”