Ex-Ironworkers boss Joseph Dougherty taken to hospital

EX-IRONWORKERS union boss Joseph Dougherty reportedly had trouble breathing yesterday as he sat on a bench outside the federal courthouse shortly after a jury began deliberations in his racketeering-conspiracy trial.

An ambulance was called about 3:15 p.m. and arrived several minutes later to the Center City courthouse on Market Street near 6th. Dougherty, 73, who has previously suffered a stroke and heart attack, was taken by the ambulance to Pennsylvania Hospital.

A hospital spokeswoman said last night that Dougherty was in the emergency room in good condition, and would be discharged about 9 p.m.

Jurors began deliberating about 3 p.m. yesterday and went home about 4:15 p.m. They will resume deliberations this morning.

In his closing argument yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Livermore told jurors the government's wiretapped recordings of phone calls between union members in the case "tell you everything you need to know."

One quote, the prosecutor said, sums up the case. In an October 2013 call, Dougherty was caught saying, "I don't give a f--- about anybody, but the union."

Livermore acknowledged that Dougherty, who joined Ironworkers Local 401 in 1966 and was its business manager from 1998 to last February, has done a lot for the union, but said that "there's another side of the coin."

Dougherty called nonunion people "pigs," Livermore said, adding: "He's engaged in a campaign of violence and extortion" and "created a culture in the union in which these acts were not only tolerated, but rewarded."

Although Dougherty did not commit any of the 25 acts of arson or extortion in the period of 2008 to February of last year listed in the indictment, prosecutors say he is guilty because he agreed to conduct union business through a pattern of arsons and extortions.

The goal? To force nonunion contractors to hire union ironworkers on jobs, the feds say.

In his closing argument, lead defense attorney Fortunato Perri Jr. acknowledged that Dougherty had a rough way of talking. "He's not the type of guy you want reading bedtime stories, trust me," Perri said.

Perri described Dougherty's phone conversations as those of a man so devoted to the union's 700 members - "he doesn't give an F about anything but the union," Perri said - as "the rants of an aging man" who took the union's concerns to heart.

"Sometimes you got to say things that will make you sound like a bad guy, a tough guy, when it's really just nonsense," the lawyer said.

In a September 2013 recorded phone call, Dougherty told business agent Edward Sweeney that if a nonunion contractor putting up an apartment building at 31st and Spring Garden streets didn't hire all union ironworkers, "we're tearing it the f--- down in broad, in broad daylight, broad f---ing daylight. . . . So, we're not losing in Center City, man."

The prosecutor contended that was evidence of Dougherty's complicity in the extortion of the contractor, who finally agreed to hire all union ironworkers and paid $9,000 for them to do the three-day ironwork part of the job.

Perri contended that quote was "testosterone talk" by Dougherty, or just a puffing of the chest. (Sweeney had previously used that term in his trial testimony in relation to a different incident.)

Perri also contended it was the union's four business agents, including Sweeney, not Dougherty, who created a group of rogue members called the "Shadow Gang," who committed crimes.

And he called union members who testified as government witnesses in the trial "desperate liars," who were seeking reduced sentences after pleading guilty.

Dougherty faces six counts - racketeering conspiracy; two arson counts in connection with a 2013 Grays Avenue warehouse fire in Southwest Philly; two arson-related counts in connection with a 2013 attempted arson in Malvern; and extortion in the 31st and Spring Garden case.

Following a defense motion, U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson yesterday dismissed two arson counts against Dougherty in connection with the December 2012 blaze at a new Quaker meetinghouse in Chestnut Hill, finding insufficient evidence for Dougherty to be charged in those crimes.

In the July 2013 Grays Avenue arson, Dougherty gave the union's "hit man" James Walsh the acetylene torch, which Walsh used to burn steel support columns at the site, the prosecutor said. The defense contended Dougherty thought Walsh wanted the torch for his personal use.

Eleven other union members were charged last year in addition to Dougherty; all pleaded guilty. Seven of them, including Sweeney and Walsh, testified at trial as government witnesses.

The defense yesterday presented about 25 character witnesses who agreed that Dougherty is a truthful, honest and law-abiding citizen.

Source: Philly.com