In other cities, recent corruption scandals were followed by changes in law or practices or other appreciable action steps in Philadelphia, the conviction of one of the city’s most powerful political figures and an influential Councilmember led to no reform moment or reckoning. (The pair were found not guilty on a few counts of honest services wire fraud, and Henon was found not guilty on some bribery counts.) Henon was found guilty on 9 of 17 charges, including conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, bribery, and 8 counts of honest services wire fraud.
Dougherty was found guilty on 8 of 11 charges, including conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and seven counts of honest services wire fraud. It ended with a resounding victory for prosecutors. In the back of the courtroom, one light fixture was dark - a burnt-out bulb or a sign of a power outage?īy the time the verdict was pronounced, the court case had stretched into its seventh week, including four days of jury deliberations. His face was puffier and more deeply creased his expression was resigned. It had been more than five years since the (first) FBI raid on Dougherty’s home, but when the first verdict was pronounced, the target of the investigation looked as if he had aged much more than that. On the courthouse façade is engraved “justice the guardian of liberty.” In a small, wood-paneled twelfth-floor courtroom, simply adorned with the Great Seal of the United States and paintings of former judges, a jury of seven women and five men were prepared to render justice for John Dougherty and Bobby Henon.
Courthouse sits catty-corner from the site of the Liberty Bell Center, which now houses the bell and tells its story.
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