Ex-labor leader Johnny Doc is on trial again — this time on extortion charges. Here’s what you need to know.

For a third time in as many years, John Dougherty is facing a federal felony trial — this time on conspiracy and extortion charges.

The former labor leader and his nephew, Greg Fiocca, are accused of threatening a contractor and a job site manager amid a dispute over Fiocca’s poor job performance and pay. Prosecutors say that while working on construction of the Live! Casino in South Philadelphia in 2020, Fiocca assaulted his supervisor and that Dougherty later threatened to block the contractor’s ability to land future work in Philadelphia.

But defense attorneys maintain the government has blown the argument out of proportion, turning what amounted to little more than a fistfight during a heated moment into a federal case. Dougherty, they contend, was simply doing his job: advocating on behalf of a member of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the union he led for nearly 30 years.

The outcome of the proceedings, set to play out in a Reading courtroom starting this week, will either serve as a final victory lap for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which has secured two previous convictions against Dougherty, or it could deliver a modicum of vindication for the ex-union head who’s consistently maintained his innocence through the more than a decade he’s spent in the crosshairs of federal authorities.

Either way, the trial will likely be Dougherty’s final time in front of a jury before he’s scheduled to be sentenced on separate bribery and embezzlement charges next month.

Here’s what to know.

Dougherty, widely known as “Johnny Doc,” was once considered the most powerful union leader in the state, transforming Local 98 in his three decades at its helm into a powerhouse in the arenas of politics and organized labor.

Under his oversight, union money and manpower helped elect governors, members of Congress, mayors, judges, and members of City Council, and his once sleepy electrician’s union became a force capable of extracting significant labor concessions from some of the largest companies in the region.

But in recent years, Dougherty’s legacy has suffered a series of significant blows. He was forced to resign his post — as well as his leadership of the Philadelphia Building Trades Council, an umbrella group of building trades unions — after his 2021 conviction on bribery charges involving City Councilmember Bobby Henon. A separate jury convicted Dougherty last year on charges that he and six others stole more than $600,000 from their union.

Evidence from those two cases portrayed Dougherty as a demanding and exacting boss, willing to use every tool at his disposal to advance his personal and professional interests.

The extortion trial promises to shed light on another quality prosecutors say defines Dougherty as a leader: a willingness to intimidate others to get what he wants. In 2016, a state grand jury investigated Dougherty’s alleged use of threats of violence in disputes with nonunion contractors, including an incident in which he allegedly hit a rival electrician in the face during a worksite altercation. That probe did not result in charges.

» READ MORE: Former Local 98 leader John Dougherty’s facing his third felony trial this week. Will this time be different?

Fiocca, 31, is John Dougherty’s nephew and was a member of Local 98 who grew up in Pennsport in the house next door to his uncle.

But despite Fiocca’s troubled work history, including altercations with former supervisors, Dougherty appointed him in 2020 to the plum posting as Local 98′s steward on Live! Casino’s project.

Fiocca’s brother, Brian, also an ex-member of the union, pleaded guilty to charges arising from Dougherty’s earlier embezzlement case and was sentenced to probation in March. And their sister, Maureen, was one of several Dougherty family members who prosecutors say the union head put on Local 98′s payroll for work they did not do.

As described in the indictment, Fiocca’s history of workplace strife continued during the Live! Casino project. Prosecutors contend he regularly failed to show up for work and to complete tasks assigned to him. As a result, the job site’s contractor, Raymond Palmieri of New Jersey-based R. Palmieri Electrical Contractors Inc., began docking his pay.

Fiocca purportedly flew into a rage and on Aug. 19, 2020, attacked the site’s manager, Rich Gibson, grabbing him by the throat, slamming him against a desk and demanding that he pay up “before I break your f— jaw.”

“I’m calling my uncle already,” Fiocca said, according to a recording Gibson secretly made of the encounter. “We’re pulling everyone off the job.”

Later that day, Dougherty allegedly threatened to block Palmieri from future work in Philadelphia if he didn’t pay Fiocca in full.

The government alleges the incident was part of a larger pattern of Dougherty covering for — and at one point giving a raise to — his nephew despite his yearslong record of poor job attendance and violent incidents, including an earlier scuffle in which he spit on one of his supervisors.

Dougherty and Fiocca each face one count of conspiracy, and 18 counts of extortion — one count for each of the paychecks Fiocca received following the alleged assault.

Defense lawyers have described the 2020 incident as a “garden-variety pay dispute” that prosecutors have trumped up into a federal crime because of Fiocca’s family connection to Dougherty. The union leader, they say, was doing what he would have done for any other member of his union whose paychecks were being shortchanged.

In court filings, they’ve accused the government of attempting to “criminalize legitimate labor activity” and of pursuing a conviction “based on the false premise that nepotism is equivalent to extortion.” They’ve also stressed that Philadelphia police opted not to file assault charges against Fiocca despite being called to the casino job site after he allegedly attacked his boss.

When the indictment was unsealed in March 2021, two years after prosecutors had indicted Dougherty in the separate bribery and embezzlement schemes, Dougherty’s then-spokesperson Frank Keel decried the newest case, saying: “This isn’t a prosecution. It’s a persecution.”

» READ MORE: The U.S. vs. Dougherty, round three edition | Inside Johnny Doc’s Trial

As in Dougherty’s two earlier trials, prosecutors have signaled they intend to play plenty of recordings from the FBI’s wiretap of Dougherty’s phone.

In them, Dougherty acknowledges Fiocca’s history of violent conduct at work and grouses to others about how that bad behavior “handcuffs us for no reason,” government lawyers say. Still, the ex-union chief expressed to others that he felt compelled to look out for Fiocca because of their family connection.

Jurors also may hear recordings made by a confidential informant in Dougherty’s inner circle, who began working with the FBI shortly after the labor leader was indicted in his bribery and embezzlement case in 2019. In one of them, Dougherty discussed Fiocca’s alleged assault of Gibson.

“We weren’t down there to make kumbaya,” Dougherty told an audience of Local 98 business managers and other employees. “F — kumbaya.”

Lawyers say they expect this trial to take only a few days — a significantly shorter time frame than Dougherty’s two previous jury trials, both of which lasted weeks. Prosecutors have indicated they could finish presenting their evidence in less than three days.

Yes. It’s been roughly four months since Dougherty last appeared before a federal jury, when he and former Local 98 president Brian Burrows were convicted of embezzling from their union. Their five codefendants in the case pleaded guilty before trial, and two — Michael Neill, former head of the union apprentice training program, and ex-Local 98 political director Marita Crawford — have begun serving their prison sentences.

Two years before that, Dougherty and Henon were convicted in a federal bribery case. The former City Council member is appealing that conviction, and is about a year into serving a 3½-year prison sentence.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl, who has overseen all of Dougherty’s myriad legal woes, is based at the federal courthouse in Reading. While he traveled to Philadelphia for the two previous trials, this time, he opted for Dougherty and the lawyers to come to him.

Just like in earlier proceedings, jurors will be selected from Philadelphia and its eight surrounding counties.

Dougherty is scheduled to be sentenced on his bribery and embezzlement convictions in early May, though a conviction in this case could alter that timeline.