Prosecutors will seek up to 14 years for labor leader Johnny Doc at his sentencing next week on bribery and embezzlement charges

Prosecutors will push to put twice-convicted labor leader John J. Dougherty behind bars for more than a decade at his sentencing hearing next week on bribery and embezzlement charges.

In a court filing Friday, government lawyers painted Dougherty — once the most powerful union official in the state — as an entitled and bullying leader who routinely stole from union coffers and bribed former Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon to avenge his personal and petty grievances.

They recommended that U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl send Dougherty to prison for anywhere from 11 to 14 years and order him to help pay more than $2.1 million to Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the union he led for nearly 30 years.

“Dougherty’s crimes have inflicted immeasurable harm upon Local 98 and the City of Philadelphia,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Costello wrote in the sentencing memo filed Friday. “Justice demands that he be held fully accountable for his actions.”

That proposed punishment for Dougherty — who will learn his fate Thursday during a federal court hearing in Reading — is more than three times the stiffest sentence given to any of the Local 98 officials and members sentenced so far in a case that, since 2019, has prompted the ouster of Dougherty, Henon, and much of the 5,000-member union’s top leadership.

If imposed, it would deliver a stunning postscript to the downfall of a man who transformed Local 98 into one of Philadelphia’s most effective advocates for workers and a political powerhouse that propelled dozens of allies into statewide and local office.

Lawyers for Dougherty did not immediately respond to requests for comment on prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation Friday. They are expected to file their own proposal with the court in the coming days.

Prosecutors defended the lengthy prison term they are seeking in their filing Friday, saying no other defendant in the case had committed as “broad and pervasive a swath of crimes” as Dougherty. The ex-union chief was the only one, they noted, to have twice taken his case before a jury and lost.

In 2021, jurors convicted him and Henon in a sweeping bribery scheme finding that the ex-union leader had effectively bought the councilmember with a $70,000-a-year union salary and other perks and then used him to corruptly bend Philadelphia’s government to his will.

Prosecutors said Friday Dougherty “got what he paid for.”

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

In 2015, as the city began renegotiating a 15-year franchise agreement with Comcast, Dougherty used Henon’s influence over the talks to exact concessions from the cable company that benefited union electricians.

That same year, as Dougherty was running to lead the Building Trades Council, an umbrella group of the city’s labor unions, he pushed Henon to propose legislation updating the city’s plumbing code in ways he knew would irk the industry’s union. The reason? Dougherty wanted something to hold over the union leaders’ heads to secure their vote in the Building Trades race.

Evidence at trial showed Dougherty’s demands on Henon weren’t only to advance what he saw as the interests of his union members. When a tow-truck driver tried to haul away his car in 2015, Dougherty vowed before the truck had even left the parking lot that Henon would introduce legislation the next day to investigate the company for predatory practices.

His instructions, according to wiretaps played for jurors in that case: “F— them to death.”

“Every time he demanded that Henon take some official action that Dougherty wanted,” Costello wrote Friday, “Henon held up his end of their corrupt bargain. He never said no.”

» READ MORE: These were the key issues jurors weighed in the John Dougherty and Bobby Henon trial

All the while, the prosecutor continued, Dougherty was engaging in another scheme — along with six other union officers and allies — to embezzle more than $570,000 from Local 98′s coffers, which they spent on everything from pricey Atlantic City birthday bashes and extensive home repairs to dozens of mundane purchases for groceries and household goods.

A jury convicted him and former union president Brian Burrows on those charges after a separate trial last year.

“Dougherty used his power and authority to steal from the union and to allow his codefendants to do the same,” Costello said. “It’s difficult to overstate the seriousness of [his] crimes given the unique positions of trust that he held.”

» READ MORE: John Dougherty union embezzlement case: Day-by-day updates

But in sentencing Dougherty’s codefendants, Schmehl, the judge, has so far proven reluctant to give prosecutors the prison terms they have sought. He’s consistently sentenced them to less time — in some cases far less — than what the government recommended.

In Henon’s case, prosecutors pushed for 10 years; he got 3 1/2. They asked for up to six for Burrows last week, Schmehl gave him four. Michael Neill, the union′s former head of apprentice training, received half of the decade behind bars government lawyers sought in his case. And though prosecutors sought up to six months for Local 98′s former political director Marita Crawford, the judge let her off with 15 days in prison followed by house arrest.

Dougherty, Costello said Friday, does not deserve such a break. The prosecutor urged Schmehl to consider threats Dougherty made to potential witnesses and members of his union shortly after his 2019 indictment.

In a series of meetings secretly recorded by a confidential informant in Dougherty’s inner circle, the union leader was caught on tape vowing to root out anyone from within his ranks who was informing against him.

» READ MORE: An FBI informant recorded Johnny Doc threatening ‘rats.’ His lawyers say that violated his rights.

“Instead of trying to reassure the employees and members of Local 98 that no matter the outcome of the pending criminal case, he would make sure their future and the future of the union was secure, Dougherty … chose instead to spread fear of retribution and attempt to intimidate potential witnesses,” Costello wrote.

Since his first conviction three years ago, Dougherty has maintained his innocence and insisted that everything he did was for the betterment of Local 98′s members. Union benefits and wages have soared under his watch as has its influence in local and state politics, he’s said.

He’ll likely stress those accomplishments Thursday when he has an opportunity to address Schmehl directly in court.But Costello, in his filing, maintained that nothing Dougherty might tout can overshadow the seriousness of the crimes he committed.

“No good deeds can outweigh the damage done by Dougherty’s betrayal of the members who paid his salary,” the prosecutor said. “The benefits to the community from the growth of Local 98 do not outweigh the harm to the public’s confidence in government.”