Union Boss, City Council Member Convicted of Conspiracy Over No-Show Job

Two Philadelphia city leaders were found guilty of conspiracy.

John "Johnny Doc" Dougherty and Bobby Henon were formally charged with conspiracy during a corruption trial. Doughtery is accused of keeping Henon on his payroll in order to help strengthen his union. Prosecutors argued that Henon received a no-show position and a $70,000 yearly wage from Dougherty. It is the latest conviction that has rocked the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union.

"All Henon had to do to keep those benefits flowing to him [was] to use his official duties to please John Dougherty," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea Witzleben argued during the trial.

Dougherty was well-known within the Philadelphia government as the manager of the IBEW Local 98 union. The Associated Press reported that he helped to donate more than $30 million toward Democratic political candidates and that his brother, Kevin Dougherty, also sits on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He also heads the Philadelphia Building Trades Council.

However, Dougherty was found guilty of eight counts out of 11 during his trial. These counts included conspiracy and honest services fraud. Henon was convicted of nine counts out of 18, which contained counts of federal program bribery.

Both men are scheduled to be sentenced in February. Dougherty will face a different trial soon, as he and others involved in the IBEW Local 98 union are accused of embezzlement.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below:

Jurors deliberated for several days last week before announcing a verdict Monday afternoon.

Defense lawyers insisted that there had been no undue influence and argued that the city allows council members to hold outside jobs. The defense also questioned how it was a crime for union supporter Henon to side with Dougherty and the building trades workers he was elected to represent.

"If you know that the person you're supposedly bribing is already going to do what you want, then there is no bribe," Dougherty attorney Henry Hockeimer Jr. said in his closing argument last week.

Prosecutors over four weeks of testimony tried to show that Dougherty used Henon to press Comcast Corp. to steer $2 million worth of electrical work to a friend during cable contract talks with the city; to shut down the non-union installation of MRI machines at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and to investigate a towing company that seized Dougherty's car.

Hockeimer called Dougherty an older-brother figure to Henon and defended his client's "bombastic" style. He scoffed at allegations that the salary and Philadelphia Eagles tickets he passed on to Henon amounted to bribes.