The evidence the jury didn’t hear | Inside Johnny Doc’s Trial

Welcome back, court watchers, for another edition of the Inside Johnny Doc’s Trial newsletter. And oh, how the time flies. After four weeks of testimony, it’s closing time.

Prosecutors and the defense both finished presenting their evidence last week and are expected to make their final pitches to jurors later today. After that, it will be up to the seven women and five men of the jury to sift through the dozens of expense reports; receipts for Target, Brooks Brothers, and pasta dinners; wiretapped phone calls; and hours of witness testimony that have been put before them as they attempt to render a verdict in the case.

But before we get there, we’ve got a week’s worth of behind-the-scenes details from court to unpack and a look at some of the evidence the jury didn’t hear — including what prosecutors describe as recordings of John Dougherty allegedly threatening to “beat up” and “run over” potential witnesses in the case.

Let’s get to it.

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith (@jeremyrroebuck, @oonagoodinsmith, insidejohnnydoc@inquirer.com)

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🎟️ From Eagles game box seats to Taylor Swift concerts, prosecutors said Dougherty misspent thousands of dollars on tickets for his family and friends. “I’ve got Nicki Minaj tonight,” he told his niece in 2015. “How many do you need?”

🚩 Accountants repeatedly warned Dougherty’s union, Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, about its lax oversight of credit card use and expense reports. But Dougherty’s lawyers say he wasn’t aware of that.

👀 The atmosphere was tense in the courtroom during testimony from one ex-Local 98 business agent. Dougherty’s supporters in the gallery grumbled to themselves about the man’s status as witness for the prosecution, with one exclaiming during a break: ”Wanna catch a rat? Put out some cheese.”

🍪Prosecutors wrapped up their case by pointing to an $80 cookie tray they say Dougherty bought with union money for the christening of his nephew’s baby. He justified the expense as for the “good of the union.” A defense attorney asked: “Is that so awful?”

After a month of testimony from government witnesses, Dougherty’s chance to directly tell the jury his side of the story came Thursday. He opted to remain silent.

The typically outspoken labor leader chose not to take the witness stand or call any witnesses to testify on his behalf.

Though perhaps surprising, the move isn’t all that unusual. Remember, the government has the burden of proof in criminal trials, meaning it must persuade the jury to convict beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense doesn’t have to do anything — especially if it believes the government hasn’t proven its case.

Dougherty also chose not to testify in his 2021 bribery trial alongside then-Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon, though he did call several defense witnesses. Both men were ultimately convicted.

And it’s not like we haven’t heard Dougherty’s take throughout his current trial. Through their cross-examination of every witness, defense lawyers Greg Pagano and Henry M. George have sought to poke holes in the government’s theory that Dougherty and other union officials embezzled more than $600,000 from Local 98. They’ll have another chance to make their case during closing arguments.

Dougherty’s codefendant Brian Burrows, Local 98′s former president, also chose not to testify. But his attorneys did call one witness to the stand: his brother Robert.

They hoped the sibling’s testimony would discredit a witness jurors heard from earlier in the trial — contractor Anthony Massa, who said Brian Burrows had instructed him to bill to Local 98 for thousands of dollars in home renovations he oversaw at the union president’s Mount Laurel home.

Robert Burrows told jurors he believed his father and brother did some of the work for which Massa later billed. But prosecutors pushed back hard, challenging the sibling on how he knew that.

“I don’t think the elves did it.” — Robert Burrows’ response when prosecutors pressed him on how he knew the Burrows family, not Massa, had done the home renovation project in question.

The door may be closed on new testimony in the trial, but there was one bit of provocative evidence jurors never heard.

In the months following his 2019 indictment, Dougherty was repeatedly caught on tape threatening to “beat up,” sue or “run over” potential witnesses against him — and in one case, urged members of his union to put a suspected turncoat in their ranks “under the water,” prosecutors said in court filings last week.

They asked the judge to let them play those recordings — secretly captured by an FBI informant in the ex-union chief’s inner circle — saying the threats were only further evidence of Dougherty’s guilt. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Schmehl never publicly ruled on that request and the government never played them for jurors.

But the transcripts are colorful, to say the least.

“You can say, ‘Oh, well he can’t beat me up anyway.’ Yeah, I can,” Dougherty told a room full of Local 98 business agents in 2020, according to the filing. “At this level, when you’re playing with my family and my life … I can. And there’s nobody here [that] will get back up a second time. The first time you get up, the second time I run you over.”

Months earlier, he’d warned a room of around 30 union members and allies to think twice before talking to the FBI.

“You going to f— around with that mouth, I’m coming after everything you have and everything you f— own,” Dougherty purportedly said.

Prosecutors say other recordings feature Dougherty boasting of his prowess in 30 brawls and urging loyalists to do something about one member of the union he suspected of turning against him. During a 2020 conference call, he likened his legal plight to the fate of a mob boss in the Canadian crime drama Bad Blood, which he said he’d been watching on Netflix.

“Every show, they say one thing,” Dougherty said, according to the government filing. “‘Everybody is brought down by someone on the inside.’”

Dougherty’s defense has previously argued these secret recordings violated the labor leader’s civil rights and that he never intended to intimidate anyone.

But in his push to have them admitted as evidence in the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Grenell insisted: “These are not the words and deeds of a person convinced of his innocence.”

We always appreciate hearing your questions about the trial. Reader Bob Wolfe emailed to ask:

Could Dougherty be ordered to pay Local 98 back for the money he’s accused of stealing?

The answer: If Dougherty is convicted, he will almost certainly be ordered to pay restitution to the union. Exactly how much will be decided at his sentencing.

And things could get complicated. Lawyers on both sides will surely have conflicting ideas about which dinners, shopping trips, and tickets to concerts or sporting events should be considered personal and which ones Dougherty can justify as business expenses — debates that U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Schmehl, the judge overseeing the case, will have to referee. Local 98 is likely to have something to say, too, about how much it believes it’s owed.

Thanks for writing in, Bob!

We also answered more of your questions last week in a Reddit AMA on /r/philadelphia, including some about what it’s like in the courtroom, union PACs, and the public’s increasing interest in labor groups.

📮Do you have a question about the trial? Email us back and we might answer it in our newsletter.

The case could be in the jury’s hands as soon as Tuesday, and from then on out, your trusty newsletter writers will be on verdict watch.

🔮 How long until the jury reaches that verdict? Your guess is as good as ours. In Dougherty’s 2021 bribery case, the jury took 3½ days to find him and Henon guilty. But, this is a different case with different charges, different evidence, and different jurors. Truly, only time will tell.

In the meantime, you can follow along with our live updates and daily coverage. And keep an eye on your inbox for a special “verdict edition” of the newsletter, whenever that decision comes.

👋 We’ll see you here again soon.

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