The prison, probation and prognostication edition | Inside Johnny Doc’s Trial

Welcome back, court watchers, to another installment of the Inside Johnny Doc’s Trial newsletter. Three of former labor leader John Dougherty’s closest allies found out last week just how much time — if any — they’ll be spending behind bars for embezzling money from their former union, Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

But we’re already looking ahead to what the punishments imposed by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Schmehl might tell us about how much prison time Dougherty is likely to face at his scheduled sentencing in May.

We also have news on Dougherty’s third felony trial — an extortion case that had been set to go before a jury next month. (Spoiler: It’s looking like that one may be postponed again.)

Let’s get to it.

— Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith (@jeremyrroebuck, @oonagoodinsmith, [email protected])

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🛠️ Michael Neill, the union’s former apprentice training director, was sentenced Tuesday to 13 months in prison and ordered to pay Local 98 more than $131,000 for renovations at his home and businesses that he billed to the union. “I disappointed a lot of people,” he told the judge. “I deserve everything on myself.”

💸 Local 98′s former political director, Marita Crawford, got 15 days behind bars and three months’ house arrest on Wednesday. She’s already paid the union back the nearly $12,000 she spent on hotel stays, beauty services, and birthday bashes for herself and Dougherty. “I made the mistake, and I alone take responsibility,” she said.

🛒 And on Thursday, Dougherty’s former driver and personal assistant, Niko Rodriguez, caught a break with a sentence of three years’ probation. He also has to pay back more than $13,000 he racked up on Local 98 credit cards for groceries, baby supplies, and other personal goods. He told the judge: “I understand the gravity of my actions.”

👤 You might have noticed a pattern in each of the defendants’ remarks to the judge. All three took pains to make clear that their crimes were theirs alone, and none of them blamed Dougherty, who did not attend any of the hearings last week. Some defense lawyers delicately sought to remind Schmehl that ”others” were more responsible for Local 98′s financial losses. But none of them mentioned the former labor leader by name.

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

So what could this all mean for Dougherty, who is scheduled for sentencing in May on not just the embezzlement charges but also a bribery conviction that has already sent former Philadelphia City Councilman Bobby Henon to prison?

Across four different sentencing hearings for Dougherty codefendants, Schmehl has consistently crafted punishments at the low end of — or even below — what was recommended by federal sentencing guidelines. In all but one instance, those sentences have also fallen significantly shorter than what prosecutors had sought.

The government pushed for up to two years for Neill. He got roughly half that. They asked for up to six months for Crawford, who was sentenced to two weeks behind bars plus three months’ house arrest. For Henon, prosecutors sought 10 years. The former council member walked away with just 3½.

Only in Rodriguez’s case — where the government agreed to probation — did Schmehl’s sentence line up with prosecutors’ proposal.

It’s too early to say how much prison time the government will seek for Dougherty or what his recommended punishment range under federal sentencing guidelines will be. But if the judge follows the pattern he’s established so far, he might be open to cutting the ex-union chief a considerable break.

Schmehl has given each of the defendants he’s sentenced credit for their community service and work on behalf of union laborers. And Dougherty will almost certainly stress his nearly three decades at the helm of Local 98 fighting on behalf of organized labor and the city when it’s his time to stand before the judge.

But no matter how forgiving Schmehl is feeling, he’s still likely to give Dougherty the stiffest sentence of all eight defendants in the case. Unlike Crawford, Neill and Rodriguez — who all pleaded guilty — Dougherty chose to take his case to trial and lost, twice.

Those proceedings showed very little happened at Local 98 without Dougherty’s say-so. And he’ll be penalized at sentencing for his role as an organizer of both the embezzlement and bribery schemes.

Dougherty’s also the only defendant who’s been convicted in both cases — a fact that will inflate his recommended prison sentence under the guidelines. And he’s facing possible conviction on a whole other set of charges in an extortion trial this spring involving threats he allegedly made to a contractor who tried to fire his nephew.

“Some people say sentencing is one of the most difficult things a judge has to do,” Schmehl said as he sentenced Crawford last week. When it comes to crafting Dougherty’s punishment, the judge certainly has his work cut out for him.

“You held a position of power in the union. Fellow union members elected you, and trusted in you, and you abused that trust.”

— Schmehl to Neill, explaining his decision to sentence the ex-union official to 13 months behind bars.

We always appreciate hearing your questions about the case. One regular reader recently wrote to ask why none of the Local 98 officials sentenced so far has been forced to start a prison term immediately.

The answer: The judge gave Crawford and Neill until early April to turn themselves in to begin serving their sentences. In Henon’s case, Schmehl granted the former Council member more than six weeks before he had to report to a minimum-security prison in New Jersey.

That’s not uncommon in federal court, especially in cases involving nonviolent offenses where the defendant is not deemed a flight risk or a danger to the community. Crawford, Neill, and their codefendants have all been free on bail since they were indicted in 2019.

Surrender dates are designed to give defendants time to put their affairs in order and say their goodbyes to family before they start their prison terms. They also give the U.S. Bureau of Prisons time to figure out which of its 122 correctional facilities across the country it plans to send the defendant to — a process that can take several weeks.

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Last week was just the beginning of an active couple of months in court for Dougherty and his codefendants. But the wheels of justice aren’t known for their speed, and that timeline could already be changing.

Late Thursday, Schmehl granted Dougherty’s lawyers more time to file pretrial motions for his extortion trial, which had been scheduled to start March 25. While the judge hasn’t officially moved the trial date, the new filing deadline he set — April 8 — falls two weeks after jury selection was set to begin. We’ll most likely see an order in the next few days postponing the trial until later this spring.

With that in mind, here’s a look at what’s next on the calendar, dates subject to change:

📅 March 4: Sentencing for Dougherty’s nephew Brian Fiocca, a former Local 98 employee.

📅 March 20: Dougherty’s feud with his former lawyers at Ballard Spahr continues with a scheduled hearing on conflicts of interest that he argues should overturn his convictions.

📅 March 25: The originally scheduled start date for Dougherty’s extortion trial alongside nephew Greg Fiocca.

📅 April 16: Anthony Massa, a Local 98-favored contractor turned star government witness, faces sentencing.

📅 April 30: Former Local 98 president Brian Burrows’ sentencing.

📅 May 2: John Dougherty faces sentencing for his embezzlement and bribery convictions.

That’s it for now. We’ll be back in your inbox with the latest as developments in the case warrant. In the meantime, sign up here to receive occasional emails from us featuring revelatory Inquirer investigations.

Thank you for reading, and we’ll see you later. 👋

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