Two Views of Ironworkers Leader Dougherty As He Faces Sentencing for Racketeering
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Sentencing is scheduled in federal court, today, for former Philadelphia Ironworkers Union president Joseph Dougherty, convicted in January of racketeering, extortion and damaging property using fire.
Prosecutors are seeking a long prison term, despite the fact, which they acknowledge in a sentencing memo filed last week, that at 73 and in ill health, "the probability of (Dougherty's) surviving even the mandatory minimum is remote."
They've asked Judge Michael Baylson to impose seven years above the minimum 15 year sentence arguing, "The defendant engaged in egregious criminal activity and deserves serious punishment."
They also say a longer sentence "... would go a long way towards deterring other labor
leaders from engaging in similar conduct."
Neither argument sits well with long-time labor leader Jim Moran, who plans a rally in support of Dougherty outside the federal courthouse before sentencing.
"I don't believe any of the charges against him. I don't think he's guilty. I think the jury got it wrong," says Moran. "Juries can get it wrong once in a while. I think they got this one wrong."
Moran says some local union leaders are shying away from supporting Dougherty in what Moran calls Dougherty's "darkest hour."
He doesn't blame them. "It's a political football," he says.
Moran, though, believes Dougherty's years of service to workers warrant a show of encouragement.
"He stood up for workers, all workers, not just iron workers," he says. "I see him totally differently than the way he's been painted in the press."
Even the prosecutors praise Dougherty's loyalty to his members. "There is no question Joseph Dougherty did many good things for the union and its members during his long tenure," they write in their memorandum. "Virtually all of the government witnesses at trial testified to the many good deeds that Dougherty did for them and their families over the years. Dougherty treated the members of the union as if they were his own family members.
"However," they write, "his zeal for the union members became misguided and he lost his moral compass. Somewhere along the way, he began to believe that any criminal act was justified if it furthered the goals of the union. Worse, Dougherty began to expect others in the union to live by his same code. The end result was a criminal enterprise which engaged in this systematic crime spree."
The defense has filed a so-called Rule 29 Motion, arguing the trial evidence was legally insufficient to support his conviction on two of the charges he's being sentenced for. Dougherty's attorney writes that if that motion is granted, the mandatory minimum would be only 3 1/2 years.
