Friday, March 28, 2008
Reputed mob boss likely turning state's evidence in Slotsylvania
I've long dreaded this weird, but important moment in Slotsylvania history - and I'm not talking about the nation's temporary focus on this state for the heated Democratic primary in the U.S. presidential race.Reputed Northeastern Pennsylvania mob boss Billy D'Elia pleaded guilty today to just one count of money laundering conspiracy and one count of witness tampering. He had been facing nearly two dozen counts as a result of a federal investigation.
D'Elia, 61, was charged in May 2006 with laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug proceeds and five months later additional charges were added after he tried to have a witness in the case killed.
His attorney, James Swetz, declined to tell the Associated Press whether there was a plea agreement or whether D'Elia agreed to cooperate in other cases.
However, D'Elia has testified once already, in front of a Dauphin County grand jury last year. It then recommended perjury charges against Mount Airy Casino Resort owner Louis DeNaples and took the unusual step of asking for reforms to the state's slots gambling system.
The DeNaples case is beginning to rock Slotsylvania to its political core, leading some Republican state lawmakers to call for a special bipartisan committee with subpoena power to investigate his licensing.
The Dunmore billionaire and former federal felon reportedly gave more than $1.1 million to the state's top politicians - including at least $115,000 to Gov. Ed Rendell, at least $35,000 to state Attorney General Tom Corbett and hundreds of thousands more to key lawmakers and party groups on both sides of the aisle, including some publicly opposed to slot machines - to get slots gambling legalized in 2004 and to buy enough influence to get his own license two years later.Asked by the Scranton Times-Tribune in 2006 why he gave so many campaign contributions to the state's top brass, the landfill owner, banker and auto parts dealer replied, "It's more like building a customer base and spreading goodwill. It's business."
To date, the governor and the state's top prosecutor have publicly refused to return DeNaples' money, saying through their government-hired spokesmen that DeNaples is innocent until proven guilty.
Meanwhile, DeNaples spent $67,375 last year on lobbyists to sway lawmakers into passing a bill to turn the state's 14 slots parlors into full fledged casinos. That bill, H.B. 2121, was written by House Majority Leader H. William DeWeese but has been stuck in the Gaming Oversight Committee for more than a year.
Corbett and his seven-attorney government corruption unit are not prosecuting DeNaples. Instead, Corbett says he let Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marisco do it.
DeNaples, 67, has long been rumored to have had mob connections, and was even cited in a report of the now-defunct Pennsylvania Crime Commission. He has denied any wrong doing.
DeNaples has hired high-priced lawyers and a spokesman with ties to the governor to defend him. They've launched a public smear campaign with lead defense attorney, Richard Sprague of Philadelphia, citing grand jury leaks to the media as proof Marsico is headline grabbing. The county prosecutor denies the assertion.
Swetz, D'Elia's attorney, has previously said his client would have been willing to testify before the Gaming Control Board before DeNaples was licensed, but was never subpoenaed.
Former control board chairman Tad Decker, a college buddy of Gov. Rendell who appointed him, has said he was told D'Elia would refuse to cooperate if called, but refused to say who told him.Decker has also publicly denied testimony from state police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller that he knew or should have known state police were investigating DeNaples for perjury before the Gaming Control Board voted unanimously to grant him a license on Dec. 20, 2006.
Decker's old law firm, Cozen O'Connor, which he has since returned to head, was subsequently hired by DeNaples to handle the financing of his slots parlor.
DeNaples was indicted Jan. 30, 2008, three months after opening his $412 million slots parlor at the site of the former Mount Airy Lodge, a once-famous lover's resort. The Gaming Control Board has since barred DeNaples from his own casino and his share of its proceeds until the charges are resolved.
The grand jury found DeNaples lied to the control board behind closed doors about his relationship with D'Elia; D'Elia's former boss, the late mafia don Russell Bufalino; and two corrupt political fixers in Philadelphia, based partly upon D'Elia's testimony and federal wiretaps.
D'Elia is said to be a mediator among mob families. The Feds say he met frequently with Philadelphia mobsters and had frequent contacts with western Pennsylvania and New York families.
DeNaples told the Gaming Control Board that he and D'Elia were merely acquaintances. But D'Elia told the grand jury they've been long-time friends, even to the point where DeNaples attended his daughter's wedding.
Attorneys for DeNaples dispute D'Elia's assertion, claiming he lied to the grand jury. As proof, Sprague has cited D'Elia's claim that DeNaples gave him his late father's rosary beads as a symbol of their friendship. The beads were buried with the elder DeNaples, Sprague told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
DeNaples' spokesman, Kevin Feeley, on Friday accused prosecutors of giving D'Elia a sweetheart deal in exchange for his testimony against DeNaples.
"It's clear to us that he's getting a deal to cooperate because he's the foundation of their case," Feeley said. "It is stunning that the government would agree to give a deal to a guy who allegedly tried to murder a witness."
Feeley also called D'Elia a liar. "It's clear he's willing to say anything if it helps him get a deal."
U.S. Attorney Martin Carlson declined to respond to Feeley's accusations Friday, issuing a press release that thanked state and federal law enforcement officials but said little about D'Elia's plea. He cited "sealing orders" entered by the court as his reason.
DeNaples' perjury case has yet to be scheduled for trial. His attorneys have asked the state Supreme Court to intervene, arguing Marsico overstepped his authority and the grand jury that issued the indictment was not properly empanelled.
D'Elia will be sentenced in June, when we may find out what, if any, deal he cut. He now faces up to 30 years in prison and a $750,000 fine.
On DeNaples' legal team, but away from the criminal case involving DeNaples, are four former federal prosecutors.
One of them is former Assistant U.S. Attorney Sal Cognetti Jr., who successfully prosecuted DeNaples for a government fraud conspiracy 30 years ago. He is now defending DeNaples' friend, the Rev. Joseph Sica, who also faces perjury charges. The grand jury claimed the Scranton priest lied to them about DeNaples' mob ties.
DeNaples also hired former U.S. Attorney Tom Marino, Carlson's predecessor. who was supposed to be building a federal case against DeNaples in 2006 when he secretedly vouched for his good character as a law enforcement reference on DeNaples' slots parlor license.Marino recused himself from the federal probe when word of his support of DeNaples leaked last year. He later resigned to take a job as DeNaples' in-house counsel.
DeNaples also hired Peter Vaira, a former U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, and J. Alan Johnson, a former U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh, to assure the control board that DeNaples had no relationships with organized crime figures.
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here. For more about Billy D'Elia, click here.
Labels: Bill DeWeese, Billy D'Elia, casino, Ed Rendell, Jeffrey Miller, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tad Decker, Tom Corbett
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Spinning the wheels of injustice in Slotsylvania
I couldn't resist writing that headline after reading today's editorial in the Towanda Daily Review, which calls Pennsylvania's slots parlor licensing system "a game of chance in terms of reliability and integrity" because of the Louis DeNaples mess."The scandalous failure of several state agencies to cooperate, as the Gaming Control Board considered Dunmore businessman Louis DeNaples' application to operate the Mount Airy Casino Resort, must be the last such breach of the public trust."
I'll go that paper one step further and say it should never have happened in the first place.
It wouldn't have, had state law had prevented the billionaire from buying more than $1.1 million worth of influence among the state's top politicians despite his admitted federal felony in 1978.
Gov. Ed Rendell accepted at least $115,000 and state Attorney General Tom Corbett took at least $35,000 from DeNaples in campaign contributions. Neither will give it back now that DeNaples has been indicted for perjury.
A Dauphin County grand jury found he lied to the state Gaming Control Board during his closed-door licensing hearing about his relationship with two reputed mob bosses and two corrupt political fixers. DeNaples has denied any wrongdoing, but has been barred from his own casino pending the outcome of the criminal case.
Republican lawmakers, who are in the minority in the state House, have started a call for reforming the state's four-year-old law legalizing slot machine gambling. They also want a bipartisan committee to investigate DeNaples' licensing.
However, the bill to create that committee, House Resolution 652, still isn't posted online for the public to read. Is it any wonder that the Republicans are also decrying largely partisan efforts to block them?
"For all the grousing by lawmakers about the regulatory failure, they are responsible for creating a structure that compromised the independence of the investigative machinery responsible for licensing investigations and, potentially, of board members themselves," the Daily Review's editorial says.
I couldn't agree more.
Legalized gambling was a major change in Pennsylvania and should have been put to the voters in the form of a referendum. Instead, it was snuck into existence by gutting an existing bill and then ramrodded through the Legislature in the middle of the night on the eve of a July 4 holiday recess.
The newspaper also says, "Reforms now will be crucial not only regarding the determination of licenses for the remaining slots parlors authorized by the law, but for the inevitable future expansion of the gambling industry."
I dispute the inevitability of further gambling expansion.
Although House Bill 2121 is already pending to turn the 14 slots parlors - seven of which are already operating - into full casinos, Slotsylvania has yet to provide statewide property tax reductions for all homeowners, much less real tax reform.
Funding those tax cuts was the alleged public good behind slot machine gambling in the first place. Just because our lawmakers spend like drunken sailors and are now addicted to this revenue stream doesn't mean we should further feed their addiction. That's how New Jersey landed in budget trouble despite 30 years of gambling in Atlantic City.
Yet, even as America teeters on the edge of a recession, Pennsylvania's slots parlors continue to reap big profits. "What does this tell us?" state Rep. Paul Clymer (R-Bucks County) wrote in a letter to the editors of multiple newspapers today.
"It tells me that the path to addiction has a stronger hold on recreational gamblers than previously thought, because even though more and more people are carpooling, dining in and forgoing luxury vacations in an effort to save money, they are still spending money on the one-armed bandits."
The letter from Clymer, the minority chairman of the House Gaming Oversight Committee, also calls for passage of his own bill, H.B. 783. It would require "each licensed gaming entity that offers patrons total rewards cards that track the amount of money and time spent gaming in order to determine the value of provisions or complimentary services to their patrons issue monthly statements that list patrons' gaming winnings and losses."
Clymer's bill has been stuck in his own committee for more than a year now. In fact, the oversight committee hasn't passed a single slots reform bill in that time under Chairman Harold James (D-Philadelphia).
"I encourage all citizens, as we face a sluggish economy and rising unemployment rates, to be smart about their finances and stick to a budget when it comes to recreational expenses," Clymer wrote. "Your money is better spent elsewhere than at a multi-billion dollar casino that has the odds in its favor...."
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.
Labels: casino, Louis DeNaples, Paul Clymer, Pennsylvania, slots
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Smaller Slotsylvania cities may get some hush money
A Senate committee that regulates Pennsylvania's slot machine parlors unanimously approved a bill that will give smaller Pennsylvania cities and towns, like Scranton and Johnstown, a taste of the gambling profits before Philly and Pittsburgh can grab more.The 2004 slots law mandated 5 percent of annual slots revenue go into a fund for economic development and tourism. Much of the money is already going to pay for the Philadelphia Convention Center expansion, improvements at Pittsburgh International Airport and constructing the new Pittsburgh Penguins hockey arena.
So much so, that Philly and Pittsburgh can't get a quarter more from the fund for another 10 years.
However, a bill penned by state Sen. John Wozniak (D-Cambria) and approved by the Senate Community, Economic and Recreational Development Committee on Monday would change that portion of the law from a 10-year wait, to requiring that up to $1.5 billion of slots revenue be split up among other municipalities before the state's two largest cities can claim more of the fund.
That's one way to keep the rest of the state from getting too jealous and reconsidring its stance on legalized gambling. Hush money in its truest sense for the land between the two large cities, which James Carville has called Alabama.
Or as Wozniak told Times-Shamrock newspapers, "The bill adds another layer of confidence for small-town Pennsylvania that big cities will not again jump ahead of them in line for help with projects." .
His bill must now clear the Senate Appropriations Committee before it can be called for a vote.
Meanwhile, the two large cities are still far from gambling meccas. Pittsburgh's slots parlor - Majestic Star - isn't slated to open until mid-2009 and the opening of two Philadelphia casinos, Foxwoods and SugarHouse, is delayed by neighborhood opposition.
In fact, the whole Louis DeNaples licensing mess may long be over before Philly's casinos start raking in the dough. Not
Candidates looking to replace retiring state Sen. Vince Fumo (D-Philadelphia), one of the architects of the slots law, are all over the place on the matter.
The lone Republican running, Jack Morley, wants both slots parlors built immediately, according to the Philly Daily News.
Among the Democrats: Community activist Anne Dicker, who helped found Casino-Free Philadelphia, doesn't want them build them at all. Attorney Larry Farnese wants public hearings on possibly moving them someplace else in the city. And union business manager John Dougherty wants the neighbors satisfied before the slots parlors are built.
The trio will face each other in the April 22 primary.
Labels: gambling, Pennsylvania, slots, Vincent Fumo
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Monday, March 24, 2008
Pressure building in Slotsylvania House for DeNaples probe
"It seems like we're not getting the truth here," state Rep. Curt Schroder (R-East Brandywine) told the Daily Local News of Chester County last week.
That's why Shroder and other Republican lawmakers are throwing in behind House Resolution 652. It reportedly calls for creating a select committee with subpoena powers to to examine the process that awarded a state license to indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples.
I'd love to link directly to the resolution and tell you all about it.
But in typical Slotsylvania fashion, HR 652 still isn't posted online for the public to read. It isn't among a list of pending resolutions even though 12 others have been added since it was introduced last week.
That isn't what's supposed to happen when something controversial gets introduced in the Legislature. Just look at this example, which also happens to reference a fictional House Bill 652.
If passed by the House, HR 652 would reportedly create a select committee composed of 10 members, including the majority and minority chairs of the Gaming Oversight Committee, two appointments each from the majority and minority leaders, and four appointments by the speaker - two Republicans and two Democrats.
The committee would hold hearings, take testimony and issue subpoenas to compel testimony or produce documents, records or other information deemed appropriate.
Any person appearing before the committee would be put under oath or affirmation. Any person refusing to testify or produce requested records would be subject to penalties. The committee would have 90 days to complete its work.
That work is includes figuring who was telling the truth: State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller, who testified on March 4 that the state Gaming Control Board knew or should have known DeNaples was under investigation for perjury before he was granted a license, or former Control Board Chairman Thomas "Tad" Decker who has publicly stated they didn't.
The board unanimously approved a license for DeNaples on Dec. 20, 2006, ignoring DeNaples' near-three-decades old felony, a complaint that he sold a Hurricane Katrina-wrecked tractor trailer for hauling instead of scrap as well as his rumored ties to mob figures.
DeNaples was indicted Jan. 30 on four charges of lying to the gaming board about his relationship with two reputed Northeastern Pennsylvania mob bosses and two corrupt political fixers in Philadelphia.
He has denied any wrong-doing, but has been barred from his own $412 million Mount Airy Casino and its profits.
"I think we have to get to the bottom of this," said Shroder, a member of the House Gaming Oversight Committee. We can't just say, 'Oh, we'll do better next time.' We really have to restore the public's confidence in this whole operation."
Shroder could start by asking state Rep. Harold James (D-Philadelphia), the majority chairman of the oversight committee, why he hasn't called for hearings himself. Or ask James why the committee hasn't moved a single slots gambling reform bill in more than a year.
Ditto for state Sen. Jane Earll, an Erie Republican who heads the Senate Community, Economic and Recreational Development Committee and has similarly stymied reform efforts there.
Earll also stopped an effort last October to put state police in charge of slot licensee background investigations, saying, "I don't see any glaring problems that have been brought to light by today's testimony that we need to rush to fix."
As The Citizens Voice of Wilkes-Barre said in its editorial on Sunday, "Finding the truth is a matter of accountability to the public."
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.
Labels: casino, Harold James, Jane Earll, Jeffrey Miller, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tad Decker
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Sunday, March 23, 2008
Billion dollar Ed's no-bid contracts anger lawmakers
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell has awarded more than $1 billion worth of state contracts to private companies - including hiring his former law firm to handle the secret leasing of the state turnpike - without going through a public bidding process, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Sunday.Even worse, the money spent by Rendell between 2003 and 2008 cannot be compared to the spending of previous governors because state officials say they can't find the records, the newspaper reported.
What makes Rendell's practice different than his predecessors is the large dollar value of today's no-bid contracts, his unwillingness to disclose certain details and a May 2007 contract to his former practice, Ballard, Spahr, Anderson & Ingersoll, for $1.8 million.
The Ballard Spahr hiring has become a lightning rod in the past week with an increasing number of lawmakers questioning the contract not only because of Rendell's relationship to Ballard Spahr, but also because two former Rendell aides now are Ballard Spahr partners - brothers-in-law Adrian King and John Estey.
Estey was Rendell's chief of staff and a senior adviser until last month and King was deputy chief of staff until 2005. Estey, as chief of staff, recommended hiring Ballard Spahr, according to Rendell's General Counsel Barbara Adams. King now is working on the turnpike lease for the law firm in secret.
Rendell has defended the hiring, saying the firm is uniquely qualified because the company has experience in tax-related issues. Adams said she selected the firm because it is a Pennsylvania firm and because of its reputation. She said she was not told by the governor to hire Ballard Spahr.
House Minority Leader Sam Smith (R-Jefferson County) last week said the Ballard Spahr contract has the "appearance of a conflict."
So much so that Republicans are drafting a slew of bills requiring better public accountability.
House Minority Policy Chairman Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny County) said legislation is being written that would prevent Rendell, and future governors, from doling out contracts worth more than $100,000 without greater scrutiny.
State Senate Majority Whip Jane Orie (R-Allegheny County) wants to use legislation she co-sponsored last fall to establish stricter guidelines. The bill is modeled after a law Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter pushed through in 2005 as a councilman. The law makes businesses ineligible for no-bid city contracts if they contribute more than $10,000 a year to a city official's campaign.
Ballard Spahr's hiring was first disclosed by blogger Bill Keisling on yardbird.com two weeks ago. His reporting found the firm had started work on privatizing the turnpike even before the execution of a signed contract last year.
Since then, dozens of Ballard Spahr attorneys have billed the state for work on the turnpike, including include Kenneth M. Jarin, a Rendell campaign contributor ($40,000), a partner in Ballard Spahr and the husband of state Treasurer Robin L. Wiessmann. The couple live in Newtown, Bucks County.
Jarin is also treasurer for the Democratic Governors' Association, which gave Rendell $462,000 for his gubernatorial campaign in 2002. In 2005, Rendell named him to the Board of Governors for the State System of Higher Education, which he now chairs.Jarin billed the Commonwealth at a rate of $531.25 an hour for 46.5 hours of work, a total of $24,703.15, in April and May 2007. before Ballard Spahr's contract was finalized on May 23, 2007, Keisling found.
Labels: contracts, Ed Rendell, Ken Jarin, no-bid, Pennsylvania
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Saturday, March 22, 2008
DeNaples fights back; key lawmaker in trouble in Slotsylvania
Now it's indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples' turn to fight back.On Thursday, the Dunmore billionaire gave a copy of his own FBI file to the state Gaming Control Board. He initially refused to do that during the background check for his license, even though he requested it through the Federal Freedom of Information Act.
Kevin Feeley, DeNaples' spokesman, blamed the discrepancy on the FBI's failure to release the entire file to DeNaples in a timely manner. Since then, the FBI has supplied the entire file to DeNaples' attorneys, Feeley said. In response to a recent request from the gaming board, the lawyers gave it to the agency.
DeNaples' lawyer, Richard A. Sprague of Philadelphia, told the Inquirer the perjury case against his client rests on lies told by reputed Northeastern Pennsylvania mob boss Billy D'Elia.
Sprague said D'Elia lied when he told the grand jury that the D'Elia-DeNaples family relationship ran so deep that DeNaples gave his father's rosary beads to D'Elia after the elder DeNaples passed away. The rosary beads were black, not green, and are buried with the elder DeNaples, Sprague told the newspaper's editorial board.
Sprague also attacked D'Elia's testimony cited in the grand jury's Jan. 30 presentment that D'Elia's predecessor, the late Russell Bufalino, gave DeNaples the ring he was wearing after DeNaples complimented it while the pair were at the C&C Club in the early 1970s.
It never happened, said Sprague, who had asked to meet with the Inquirer's editorial board to complain about the way the newspaper's editorials had characterized DeNaples, who maintains his innocence. He has been barred from his own casino - and its profits - pending the outcome of the criminal case.
State police filed the four perjury charges against DeNaples, 67, accusing him of lying to Gaming Control Board agents about the extent of his relationships with D'Elia, Bufalino and two men at the center of a federal probe into corruption involving Philadelphia City Hall.
And before you go thinking DeNaples' was framed, remember he pleaded no contest to a federal felony in a 1978 fraud case, gave more than $1.1 million to the state's top elected officials in the years before he received his license, and FBI wiretaps are being used as evidence against him.
None of that also explains whether DeNaples attended the 1999 wedding of D'Elia's daughter, as D'Elia has also claimed. Stands to reason that if there was no friendly connection between the two of them, DeNaples might just have sent a gift and well wishes.
Better hope the feds, state police and/or Dauphin County prosecutors are going through the wedding album right now looking for DeNaples in group shots.
Nor does it explain why Tad Decker, the former chairman of the gaming board, refused to call D'Elia as a witness before the board unanimously voted to grant him a license on Dec. 20, 2006.
Decker told the Allentown Morning Call that someone - he refused to say who - told him that D'Elia would merely have evoked his fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination if called. It wasn't D'Elia's lawyer, who said his client is eager to testify on this matter.
Decker and other Gaming Control Board members knew or should have known that the state police were investigating DeNaples for perjury before they issued him a license, according to testimony state police commander Jeffrey Miller gave the Legislature during budget hearings last month.
Since then, you can understand why Republicans in the Legislature are salivating for an official probe into DeNaples' licensing by a bipartisan committee with subpoena power. They also want reform for the state's four-year-old slots law.
One of the biggest impediments to slots reform, though, has been state Rep. Harold James (D-Philadelphia), majority chairman of the House Gaming Oversight Committee. He has refused to move any slots-related legislation out of his committee for more than a year.
But the wheels in Slotsylvania go round and round - and James may now be hardpressed to win re-election this year.
According to the Inquirer: The state Supreme Court issued a three-sentence order Thursday overturning a ruling by Commonwealth Court Judge Doris A. Smith-Ribner and ordered her to consider a challenge against James's nominating petitions, seeking to have him thrown off the April 22 primary ballot.The original deadline for submitting signatures was Feb. 12, and the deadline for challenging them was seven days later.
But a raging snowstorm in central Pennsylvania kept some candidates from reaching the state election bureau in time, and Gov. Rendell extended the filing deadline from 5 p.m. on Feb. 12 to noon on Feb. 14. Challenges were due seven days later.
James's opponent, Kenyatta Johnson, challenged James's petitions on grounds that he improperly listed himself as the person circulating his petitions, when in fact they were circulated by other people.
Johnson filed the challenge in mid-afternoon on Feb. 21. James's attorney, John Sabatina, contended that the challenge should have been filed before noon. Ribner-Smith agreed and dismissed the challenge, without hearing any of Johnson's evidence on the alleged petition problems.
The Supreme Court disagreed, ruling yesterday that the challenge had been "timely filed" and remanding the James case for a hearing next Wednesday.
There is no known direct connection between DeNaples and state Rep. James.
However, one of James' biggest political contributors over the years was former state Rep. Mike Veon, who gave him a total of $5,000. Although Veon is now a lobbyist in Harrisburg for gambling and other interests, as a lawmaker he received at least $60,000 in contributions from DeNaples.
Veon also was head of the House Democratic Campaign Committee and used that position to push for gambling expansion along with now-House Majority Leader H. William DeWeese, who reportedly received $5,000 in contributions from DeNaples.
James' committee is sitting on a bill DeWeese wrote, H.B. 2121, which would turn all of the state's 14 slots parlors - seven of which are already operating - into full fledged casinos.
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.
Labels: Bill DeWeese, Billy D'Elia, casino, Harold James, Louis DeNaples, Mike Veon, Pennsylvania, slots
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Slotsylvania GOP lawmakers: Let's have an inquiry, please
Some Republican state representatives want a bipartisan committee with subpoena power to probe what the state Gaming Control Board knew and when in the licensing of slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples.DeNaples, a Dunmore billionaire, was indicted Jan. 30 on four counts of perjury for allegedly lying to the board about his ties to two reputed mobsters and two political fixers. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Ditto with Gaming Control Board members, who claim they were never told state police were investigating DeNaples before they unanimously issued him a license on Dec. 20, 2006.
Their statements, however, appear to contradict testimony from Col. Jeffrey Miller, commander of the state police, who said the board should have known about the criminal investigation because its own privately-hired investigators were the ones who tipped the troopers to the possible perjury.
"We have two state agencies saying two diametrically opposed things," state Rep. Curt Schroder (R-Chester) told the Scranton Times-Tribune. He plans to introduce a bill to create the a 10-member special bipartisan committee as soon as lawmakers return to session from their Easter break on March 31.
Schroder and other Republicans lawmakers, including Doug Reichley of Lehigh, Mike Vereb of Montgomery and House Minority Leader Sam Smith of Punxsutawney, hope public pressure will force Democratic leaders to establish the committee or at least help them win enough rank-and-file votes from the other side to pass the resolution.
"What we are trying to do is restore the confidence of the public and the integrity of this (licensing) process," said Rep. Ron Marsico, R-Dauphin, cousin to Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico Jr., who filed the perjury charges in January against DeNaples. "The whole process since the beginning of 2004 is in question."
Vereb agreed, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Mount Airy has a cloud over it. This is a cancer, and we have to attack this cancer ever way possible."
The Republicans are critical of the House Gaming Oversight Committee Chairman Harold James (D-Philadelphia) for only taking up bingo bills during the past 14 months and House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans (D-Philadelphia), for not allowing more questioning of Gaming Board members during recent budget hearings.
However, they denied they are pursuing a political witch hunt designed to embarrass Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, a big backer of slots who received at least $115,000 in campaign contributions from DeNaples, or the gaming board, three of whose seven members Rendell selected.
Yet, Reichley said the onus is now on the majority because "The House Democratic leadership has shielded the Gaming Board from further inquiries."
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.
Labels: Ed Rendell, Harold James, Jeffrey Miller, Pennsylvania, slots
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The Daily Rant by Dave Ralis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
The Daily Rant by Dave Ralis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
