The bars, bookies and Belmont Stakes edition | Inside Johnny Doc’s Trial

Welcome back, court watchers, to this post-Thanksgiving edition of the Inside Johnny Doc’s Trial newsletter. The trial resumes this morning after the holiday hiatus — and this week promises to be a big one in court.

Prosecutors have signaled they’re nearing the end of their case against John Dougherty and hope to wrap up their witnesses sometime this week. At that point, we’ll move into the defense phase of the proceedings, where the former labor leader aims to convince the jury to acquit him on charges that he and others embezzled more than $600,000 from Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the union he led for nearly 30 years.

But before we get there, the government still has a few loose ends to wrap up. That process started last week with a series of witnesses testifying about Dougherty’s alleged use of union resources and money to fund travel and take care of personal chores for himself, his family and friends.

We heard about trips to Costa Rica, horse racing outings in New York and Atlantic City and near daily sports bets placed with a South Philly bookie referred to in wiretapped conversations as “the guy on Passyunk.”

There was even a cameo from Mayor Jim Kenney.

So, let’s get into it.

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

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🌴 When Dougherty’s niece needed $4,000 in 2015 for her and a teammate to travel to a basketball tournament in Costa Rica, Local 98 paid their way. Prosecutors say Dougherty made it happen.

🏇The union also ended up covering some of the cost of sending Dougherty, his father, Local 98′s then-political director Marita Crawford and others to the 2015 Belmont Stakes on Long Island. But one union business agent testified that, between the bets and pricey dinners, work still got done on the trip. “It was pleasure, and it was business,” he said. “It was dual.”

❄️ But it wasn’t all fun and games. Dougherty’s union-paid generosity also extended to routinely using Local 98 staffers and resources to complete mundane, personal chores for him and his family — including shoveling snow outside the home of his brother, state Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty.

There’s things I pay for people around me every week. …. Well, who they gonna go to? They’re gonna come to me.

With all the credit card charges, pricey dinners and other expenses at issue in the case, it’s easy to lose track of just how frequently prosecutors say Dougherty and his codefendants resorted to spending Local 98′s money. To illustrate that point, your dedicated newsletter writers decided to break down the cost to the union for just one long weekend in the period covered by the indictment.

Thursday, June 4, through Saturday, June 6, 2015, came at a particularly busy time for Dougherty and the union. Weeks before, Local 98 had just scored major victories in the 2015 Democratic primary by helping to clinch nominations for Kenney and Kevin Dougherty, who at the time was running for the seat he eventually won on the state’s highest court.

And speaking of big wins, John Dougherty, his father, John Sr., Crawford and others headed north for the weekend to the Belmont Stakes to watch American Pharoah become the first thoroughbred to win the Triple Crown since 1978.

According to the indictment, here’s how much union money they spent on themselves that weekend:

Thursday, June 4, 2015:

Friday, June 5, 2015:

Saturday, June 6, 2015:

In all, prosecutors say, Dougherty and the others spent a grand total of $3,081 of Local 98 cash in just those three days. Defense lawyers contend that each of those expenses was for legitimate union purposes.

We’re still hung up, though, on the notion that eight tickets to a T-Swift concert cost $1,200 eight years ago — less than the starting resale price of one ticket to her Eras Tour this summer!

We wouldn’t advise taking a shot every time Doc’s Union Pub — the now shuttered bar at the corner of Two Street and Mifflin — has been mentioned during the trial. That is to say, it’s come up a lot.

Dougherty and codefendants Brian Burrows, Local 98′s former president, and Michael Neill, the ex-head of the union’s apprentice training program, all held a financial stake in the drinking spot. And prosecutors say they spent union money fixing it up with $37,000 worth of repairs and improvements between 2010 and 2016.

But just what was this bar?

Dougherty purchased the site in late 1999, when he was the Democratic City Committee’s party treasurer and head of Local 98. A Daily News column announcing its opening said the original bar featured 20 seats on its first floor, 60 on the second, an upstairs deck, and “standard bar food at neighborhood prices.” Dougherty had also previously owned Cecelia’s Vine Street Pub in Old City, which was named after his wife. He sold it around 2003.

The new venture quickly became a popular haunt for local politicians hosting fundraisers and campaign stops during the early aughts, featuring regular “pepper-and-eggs” brunches around Election Days for the who’s who of the City Hall set. It was a prime spot for watching the Mummers Parade each New Year’s Day and welcomed Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore and running mate, Joe Lieberman, in 2000 as they watched the Eagles beat the Cowboys, 41-14, while on the campaign trail.

It also became a flashpoint in Dougherty’s bitter rivalry with then-State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, who sent a private eye to surveil the operation leading to citations and a temporary shutdown for underage drinking in 2003. (Fumo was later convicted in 2009 with 137 counts of conspiracy, fraud and more.)

Despite the bar’s name, Dougherty had no formal ownership stake in the venture — a point the ex-union chief’s lawyers have stressed throughout his trial as they’ve sought to distance him from the money prosecutors say Burrows and Neill spent on bar improvements. His only role, according to business records, was as a co-owner with Burrows and Neill in the property holding company that owned the building the pub operated in.

Those records also show no one was making all that much money off the business. According to the holding company’s tax filings, Dougherty, Burrows and Neill each took home $5,000 or less in rent payments each year between 2012 and 2015.

The bar was eventually sold to new owners — who’ve since transformed it into the Mifflin Tavern — after the FBI raided the building and more than a dozen other sites in August 2016 in connection with the current case against Dougherty and the others.

But the crowd — a decidedly Pennsport group, “all Flyers gear and hoagiemouth” — has largely remained the same, our colleague and former “Bar Code” columnist Samantha Melamed reported in 2019.

“The electrical work,” one patron told her at the time, “remains impeccable.”

As the government case winds down we expect to hear plenty of testimony on the one major aspect of the indictment that hasn’t been covered in court so far — bribes worth $57,000, in the form of home and office improvements, that they say Dougherty accepted from George Peltz, a New Jersey electrical contractor seeking work with Local 98.

You can follow along with our live updates and daily coverage.

👋 We’ll see you here again next week.

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