Ironworker boss faces trial alone after pleas

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A former ironworkers boss will be the only defendant left standing when his union racketeering trial gets underway Monday in Philadelphia.

Federal prosecutors have charged a dozen Ironworkers Local 401 members with threatening and sabotaging nonunion contractors and rival unions in the Philadelphia area, including setting fire to a Quaker meeting hall under construction.

Eleven have pleaded guilty and some are expected to testify against longtime business manager Joseph Dougherty, 73, of Philadelphia. The trial evidence also includes dozens of FBI wiretaps.

A trial memo filed Friday said the violence intensified as the recession took hold in 2008.

Dougherty made more than $200,000 each year in the union post, but membership had slipped from about 1,000 to 700, and jobs were getting harder to come by, prosecutors said.

“Many ironworkers were unemployed for long stretches of time,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Livermore wrote in the 81-page trial memo. “In response to the union’s financial crisis, Dougherty and his co-defendants ratcheted up the level of violence against non-union contractors and other trade unions.”

Several union members have admitted they helped plan and carry out crimes that include the December 2012 arson of a Quaker meeting house being built in Philadelphia with non-union labor.

The trial is expected to last several weeks. The jury has been chosen, and opening statements are expected Monday morning.