Prosecution Winds Down Case Against Former Ironworkers Union Boss
By Tony Hanson
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Jurors heard from more cooperators and more secretly recorded tapes on Friday as the prosecution winds down its federal racketeering case against former Ironworkers Local 401 boss Joseph Dougherty.
Dougherty is accused of conspiring with the cooperators and others to commit violent acts against non-union job sites and workers.
Among the sites targeted was the Merion Golf Club as it prepared to host the 2013 U.S. Open. Construction Superintendent Jeffrey Becker testified they were building a new maintenance shed late in 2009 when there was a visit from a union organizer -- and then a late night attack.
"I noticed the bulldozers and some of the backhoes and excavator, the windows were broken out," Becker told the court. "Multiple anchor bolts for the steel buildings were bent over. They looked like they had been hit down with a sledge-hammer or something. It's very hard to bend them over that far."
One union cooperator said the tactic didn't usually work. In this case, the damage was repaired and the building was completed. But the cooperator testified that it sent a message to others.
The defense has suggested through questioning that the cooperators who implicated Dougherty are lying to save themselves and that there is no direct evidence he was involved.
But the prosecution claims the workers did act in his behalf -- and it presented this final secretly recorded conversation in which Dougherty had just been informed by phone that one of his men had been acquitted of assault/threats charges in a union-non-union related incident.
"He got lucky there, but that was good because those pigs...there shouldn't be a crime against people like that," Dougherty is heard saying. "You should be able to do whatever you want to them and it should be legal."
The prosecution is expected to rest Monday after its final few witnesses.
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