Former City Councilmember Bobby Henon has been transferred from federal prison to a Philadelphia halfway house, attorney says
Henon had been serving his 3½-year prison sentence for bribery at a correctional institution in central Pennsylvania.
Former Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon, who had been serving his 3½-year prison sentence for bribery at a federal prison in central Pennsylvania, was transferred Tuesday to a halfway house to serve out the remainder of his term of incarceration, according to his lawyer.
Brian McMonagle, who represented Henon at his 2021 trial, said Henon had been moved from the federal correctional institution in Lewisburg to a Philadelphia halfway house late Tuesday. McMonagle said he wasn’t certain how long Henon would be at the new facility before he would begin serving a three-year term of supervised release.
The Bureau of Prisons website had not updated Henon’s custody status as of Tuesday night, but on Wednesday it noted a transfer to the Philadelphia Residential Reentry Management field office. The website said Henon’s projected release date was Aug. 23, but it is not unusual for federal inmates to serve some period of time at halfway houses to ease their transition out of custody.
Henon, a Democrat who at one point served as the City Council majority leader, was convicted more than three years ago of federal bribery charges after a jury found that he had sold the powers of his office to former labor leader John Dougherty in exchange for a $70,000-per-year side job.
Prosecutors said that after Henon was elected in 2011, Dougherty kept him on the payroll of his politically powerful union, Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, to benefit the union and Dougherty, who for decades in City Hall was viewed as a one-man kingmaker with an expansive list of desires to pursue — and enemies to punish.
Henon and Dougherty long insisted that they had committed no crimes. Rather, they argued that their relationship as they pursued a pro-labor agenda was no different from other politicians whose policies aligned with donors or other influential advocates.
But jurors disagreed, and the judge who sentenced Henon, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl, said the case against him “exposed the dirty underbelly of how Philadelphia politics works.”
» READ MORE: Ex-Philly Councilmember Bobby Henon sentenced to 3½ years in union bribery case
“The people of Philadelphia thought they were electing a councilman,” Schmehl said at Henon’s sentencing hearing in 2023. “But instead they were electing a minion for John Dougherty and Local 98. That is clearly not what the city bargained for.”
Henon told the judge that he didn’t view his union paycheck as a bribe, but added: “I tried my best to help every Philadelphian, especially those who were vulnerable and those in need. By putting the interest of my union first, I failed you.”
Henon appealed his conviction, but a federal appeals court ruled against him last year.
Dougherty, meanwhile, was sentenced last year to six years behind bars — the result of his convictions in the bribery case and a separate embezzlement prosecution. He is imprisoned in Lewisburg.
McMonagle, Henon’s attorney, said he was “elated” that Henon was “back in Philadelphia to serve out the remainder of his sentence.”