Only my second blog back from a long hiatus and I find myself unprecentedly apologizing to the still-somewhat-honorable H. William DeWeese, majority leader of the Pennsylvania House.

Not bad.

DeWeese was not indicted by a state grand jury last week as another blogger predicted he might be.

Instead, state Attorney General Tom Corbett completed the first phase of his investigation by filing charges against former Beaver County legislator Mike Veon, Rep. Sean Ramaley, D-Beaver, and 10 former or suspended House Democratic staffers for taxpayer-funded bonuses paid to legislative staffers for campaign work as well as other political work done on the taxpayers' dime.

All were arraigned in Harrisburg on Friday.

Among them was Mike Manzo, DeWeese's former chief of staff, who also faces charges of handing a do-nothing job to Angela Bertugli, a former office intern he was "shtupping," as Inquirer columnist Stu Bykofky called it.

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review has even run a profile of the former small-town beauty queen. In that article, DeWeese, the loquacious House party leader and family friend who brought Bertugli to Harrisburg, was at a loss for words. "I'm heartbroken," he said Friday in an e-mail to the newspaper.

Before you go feeling sorry for the guy, factor this into your thinking:

• DeWeese and Veon were the only two state representatives who voted against repealing the pay raise lawmakers gave themselves in 2005.
• They have also been among the chief supporters of casino gambling in Pennsylvania and were important cogs in the fledgling industry's lobbying and campaign contribution efforts.
• DeWeese has said he acted aboveboard in all matters and expects to be cleared. He has portrayed himself, in public statements and through subordinates, as a hands-off leader who left the details to Veon, according to the Tribune-Review.

Labels: Bill DeWeese, Ed Marsico, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Mike Manzo, Mike Veon, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

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.

Labels: Bill DeWeese, Billy D'Elia, casino, Ed Rendell, Jeffrey Miller, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tad Decker, Tom Corbett

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...."

Labels: casino, Louis DeNaples, Paul Clymer, Pennsylvania, slots

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

"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."

Labels: casino, Harold James, Jane Earll, Jeffrey Miller, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tad Decker

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

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.

Labels: Bill DeWeese, Billy D'Elia, casino, Harold James, Louis DeNaples, Mike Veon, Pennsylvania, slots

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."

Labels: Ed Rendell, Harold James, Jeffrey Miller, Pennsylvania, slots

As bad as the judiciary can be in Pennsylvania - and I'm talking supremely bad in the case of our highest court, the one thing you could always say is we're the ones who elected them.

Maybe not for long, though.

Proponents of appointing statewide appeals courts judges launched a new effort Tuesday and plan to introduce bills in both the House and the Senate to make it a reality.

Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts and other groups propose merit selection for Supreme Court justices and judges on the Superior and Commonwealth courts. County judges would remain elected.

The proposed legislation would create a 14-member public commission to screen applicants for a list of potential nominees for the governor to consider. The governor would submit a choice from that list to the Senate, and judges who get confirmed would face an up-or-down retention election four years later and every decade afterward.

The idea of merit selection has garnered support from Gov. Ed Rendell, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Bar Association.

But former gubernatorial candidate and activist Russ Diamond is against it because the people on the commission recommending names to the governor would themselves be subject to a politicized appointment process.

I couldn't agree more.

I think we've seen quite enough of our elected elite serve themselves through appointees that owe them homage. Just look at the loyal old boys/girls network that runs our state Gaming Control Board. It's high-powered patronage run amok.

Bending and subverting the judiciary to the will of the highly partisan Legislature is no improvement. In fact, it's a complete betrayal of our state Constitution, which mandated that voters elect those who will eventually judge them.

That's not to say that the current system couldn't use some tweaking.

For instance, I'm all in favor of fundraising limits for judiciary candidates, an idea that's been kicked around in Harrisburg for more than 20 years.

But going hand and hand with that, both the bar association and the state Supreme Court must lift their prohibition on judicial candiates from expressing their political views.

The legal limitations on what judge candidates can say has made their campaigns more of a popularity contest than "American Idol." Statewide judge candidates sell themselves to raise millions to spend on TV and radio ads just to get some voter identification before election day.

Or as Lynn Marks, executive Director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, said today, "I'm not saying that any of these judges are influenced, but the perception out there is staggering."

Personally, I'd rather have judges oweing loyalty and possible favors to a few private sector special interests than consistently bowing to the will of their lawmaker patrons.

Labels: appointment, judges, merit, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania's Legislature spent $308 million on itself in 2006-07 and stashed another $241.5 million in different piggy banks for future spending.

The lawmakers have been doing the same thing annually for decades, calling their surplus the "continuing appropriation" and arguing the extra cash serves as a buffer in case the governor gets tough during budget talks.

The last time that happened was 20 years ago when Gov. Bob Casey vetoed operating money for Senate Republicans during a drawn-out budget fight, leaving them unable to pay their employees.

Given that, is overbudgeting, overtaxing and stashing the extra cash merely prudent planning?

Hardly, according to state Rep. Josh Shapiro (D-Montgomery County), who chairs the Legislative Audit Advisory Commission.

The commission voted unanimously Monday to approve the 2006-07 audit. Afterward, Shapiro said he believes the Legislature's surplus should be limited to two or three months of its annual appropriation, about $80 million.

Doing so would free up about $160 million annually for other purposes, like providing property tax relief or health coverage for the state's 800,000 uninsured.

House speaker Dennis O'Brien agrees in theory, but not on the dollar amount.

"At a time when money is tight for critical needs throughout state government, it would be a tremendous act of good faith by the Legislature to cut back on the money it's holding for contingencies and make at least $100 million available for programs that are urgently needed," O'Brien said in a press release later in the day.

And unlike everything else in Harrisburg, the desire to cut the surplus isn't partisan.

Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R-Jefferson) and Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware) said basically the same thing when they announced a plan on Feb. 5, 2007 to slash legislative reserves by at least $75 million. So far, their plan has gone nowhere.

No other state department operates like the Legislature. All offices in the executive and judicial branches either have to spend their appropriations or return the excess to the state's general fund. Some even take pride in saving the state money.

Meanwhile, critics call the Legislature's continuing surplus a slush fund and note legislative leaders tapped it in 2005 to temporarily provide pay raises to lawmakers who decided to collect it before facing re-election despite a provision in the state Constitution barring the practice. After statewide outrage, the pay raise was repealed that November.

The surplus money is still subject to shell games, though.

For example, the audit says the General Assembly surplus shrank from $215 million in 2005-06 to $211 million last year. But that's only because $32 million was moved into a new category for future spending commitments, without which the surplus would have grown last year by about 12 percent.

Still, those type of fiscal shennanigans can yield temporary positive PR. Some early headlines on St. Patrick's Day said the surplus actually decreased.

"I think there's new will to budget more responsibly and be more accountable to the taxpayers," Shapiro said.

This in the same state that makes you wait weeks to find out what your legislator spent money on and which hasn't post the audit on the state Legislature's Web site?

Ernst & Young, which prepared the audit, recommended committee and leadership checking accounts be consolidated under the House Comptroller's Office, similar to how the Senate clerk's office operates.

The audit reportedly found "significant deficiencies" in controls over House checking accounts for House committees and caucus leaders, who do not always document a specific business or legislative purpose for each expense item. As a result, the Internal Revenue Service could classify the payments as income rather than expense reimbursement.

Yet another reason to do away with the very idea of caucuses. That's where the actual haggling over bills takes place in Pennsylvania because the Legislature granted itself an exemption to the state's Open Meetings or Sunshine Law.

Labels: Dennis O'Brien, Legislature, Pennsylvania

We may never know who lied - the state police commander or the former chairman of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board - if key lawmakers like Jane Earll get their way.

After first denying there was a problem with the way the state licenses its slots parlor owners, Earll (R-Erie) now says she's willing to hold hearings in light of the four perjury charges filed against slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples.

However, she does not want them to be about the conflicting testimony of state officials on how DeNaples got his license because "I'm not sure where that (investigation) gets us constructively."

As chairwoman of the Senate's Community, Economic and Recreational Development Committee, Earll is crafting the Senate GOP's plans to address the matter. "I have no desire to turn any of this into a side circus," she said.

Oops, too late.

The time for that was before the Gaming Control Board members unanimously handed DeNaples a license after a grand jury says he allegedly lied to the board about his ties to two reputed mobsters and two political fixers.

Adding to this freaky show is the fact that before DeNaples received his license he gave as much as $1.1 million an campaign contributions to the state's top officials. Among them, Gov. Ed Rendell and state Attorney Tom Corbett, who have refused to return DeNaples' money since his indictment.

The Dunmore billionaire and former federal felon has denied any wrongdoing, but has been barred from the $412 million Mt. Airy Casino Resort he owns until the charges are resolved.

Earll, whose district is home to Presque Isle Downs & Casino, voted to legalize slot machines in 2004. As chairwoman, she has refused to bring any reform legislation up for a vote in her committee for more than a year - defying many within her party who have called for change.

She also stopped an effort last October - three months before DeNaples' indictment - 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."

This being Slotsylvania, she's clearly trying to sweep things under the rug, telling the Associated Press that the conflicting accounts about what was shared between the gaming board and state police while vetting DeNaples is akin to "he said, she said."

It's much more than that.

Col. Jeffrey Miller, the Pennsylvania State Police commissioner, testified March 4 before the Senate and House Appropriations Committees that at least some of the state's seven Control Board members knew the state police were investigating DeNaples for lying to them, but they publicly voted to award him a slots parlor license anyway on Dec. 20, 2006.

In fact, Miller said, the board's own privately-hired background investigators were the ones who tipped the staties and the Feds off in the first place. (The Feds' case was later thrown for a loop when prosecuting U.S. Attorney Tom Marino left office and took a job with DeNaples.)

The Control Board's former chairman, attorney Thomas A. "Tad" Decker, has denied that the control board knew DeNaples was lying. "We didn't send a perjury referral," Decker told the Scranton Times-Tribune on March 7. "This is just flat out not true."

Yet, Sen. Robert J. Mellow, the Democratic leader from Lackawanna County and a longtime friend of DeNaples, called any Senate perjury investigation a "slippery slope."

"All we'll be doing is taking up our time policing (testimony) as opposed to doing public policy," Mellow, who voted for the slots law, told the AP.

However, Republican House leader Sam Smith, of Jefferson County, "It's hard to look at that stuff and not think, 'Somebody isn't being 100 percent truthful here.'"

Some lawmakers say they believe that lying to a legislative committee is a crime. Good luck proving that, since none of the PGCB members were sworn in during their House appropriations hearing last month.

It was an oversight and a mistake, David Atkinson, a committee spokesman, said then.

Sixty-eight House Republicans signed a letter to House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans (D-Philadelphia) this week asking the Appropriations Committee chairman to recall the Control Board members. "The members and the public deserve to be told honest and truthful answers from this regulatory agency." says the letter, which was released Friday

Like Earll, House Gaming Oversight Committee Chairman Harold James (D-Philadelphia) has been slow to call for hearings into the DeNaples' matter, even though Evans testified he asked him to look into it last month. James told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review this week he is gathering information from both agencies and will call a hearing to look into it.

And just like Earll, James hasn't let any slots law reform bills comes up in his committee for more than a year.

Meanwhile, slots parlor owners - including DeNaples, may be barred by law from contributing to political campaigns, but are still allowed to lobby lawmakers largely in secret.

Things are getting so ugly in Slotsylvania, that politicians here can no longer point at Louisiana as more corrupt than they are, wrotes Allentown Morning Call columnist Paul Carpenter.

"The entire slots scam was ballyhooed from the start as a razzle-dazzle way to ease local school taxes," Carpenter wrote. "That was the worst fraud of all."

Labels: gambling, Harold James, Jane Earll, Jeffrey Miller, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tad Decker

FOLLOW UP FRIDAY - Pennsylvania's casinos are likely spending their easily-earned lobbying money right now battling a proposed statewide ban on indoor smoking. But good luck trying to prove it.

The state's online database of lobbying expenditures doesn't allow you to search by the subject of what is being lobbyed for or against.

Nor do the lobbyists have to spell out who they gave gifts to, just their basic purpose and who their clients are. Sometimes, the lobbyists even ignore doing that.

The state's lobbying disclosure law doesn't require immediate disclosure either, just a quarterly expense report if the lobbyist spent more than $2,500. The next reports, covering Jan. 1 to March 31, aren't due until April 30th.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers and other officials don't have to file their annual statements of financial interests - reports spelling out what gifts they've received and what conflicts of interest they've had - until May 1.

By then, the indoor smoking ban debate may be over.

Even an annual report to the General Assembly outlining lobbying activities in 2007 with detailed information on registered principals, lobbying firms and lobbyists has not been posted online for the public to read.

And everyone in Slotsylvania simply shrugs and accepts it.

Is it any wonder Gov. Ed Rendell and state Attorney General Tom Corbett feel safe in refusing to give back denotions from a slots parlor owner who has since been indicted for lying about his mob ties?

Can't anyone in Harrisburg say pay-to-play?

I do know, thanks to my own research, that the casino companies spent at least $2.6 million last year to lobby the Legislature and Rendell's administration.

And I suspect lots of lobbying is going on right now because the slots parlors want a special state exemption from a proposed indoor smoking ban - even as Senate Bill 246 is being re-crafted by a panel of lawmakers as a compromise between competing bills that passed in the House and Senate last year.

Other gambling states such as New Jersey and Connecticut are pondering outright smoking bans in their casinos.

Their reason? Atlantic City baccarat dealer Kam Wong was awarded about $150,000 as disability pay and lost wages last month as worker's compensation - and additional amounts for future medical care - for the lung cancer she developed after 10 years of breathing secondhand smoke at the former Claridge Casino Hotel.

But during testimony before the state House and Senate conference committee on Thursday, casino owners pointed to dips in slot machine revenues at Delaware casinos after that state went smoke-free. Those casinos only recovered after they expanded to 24 hours of operation and added machines.

"The baseline went down 20 percent, and it's taken six years to get back," said David Jonas, president of Philadelphia Park Casino. If that happens here, the Legislature's goal of homeowner property tax cuts would be undermined, he and his industry colleagues said.

State Rep. Mike Gerber, a champion of a law with as few exceptions as possible, countered by accusing casino owners of "asking us to put your profits before the health of your workers and your patrons."

But Jonas also argued, "We understand the health hazards of direct smoking and the concerns expressed about secondhand smoke. A blanket smoking ban on casinos would be a disaster for the industry. ... You cannot burden the casino industry with an unnecessary obstacle to providing the revenue that you need [for property tax relief]."

Committee Chairman Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery) said the committee will begin its final deliberations at a public meeting scheduled for April 1.

Meanwhile, Quakertown - one of the largest towns in Greenleaf's district - last week became the latest of a growing number of municipalities across the state to locally ban smoking outdoors in their parks. Anyone caught lighting a pipe, cigar or cigarette faces a fine of up to $600 or 30 days in jail.

Labels: casino, lobbying, Pennsylvania, slots, smoking

Lobbyists spent $53.5 million last year trying to sway New Jersey lawmakers, down $1.8 million from 2006, a new state report says.

I'd love to give you comparable numbers for Pennsylvania, but they don't exist. More on that in a bit.

Out of all that money, the lobbyists only passed $31,666 in direct benefits to New Jersey lawmakers, down from $45,500 in 2006 and from $79,509 in 1997, according to the records. Under state law, benefit passing includes meals, entertainment, gifts, travel and lodging.

The biggest recipient of that surprisingly small largesse was Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula, chairman of the Assembly committee overseeing telecommunications and utilities. He accepted $1,126 in gifts last year from lobbyists. All but $280 came from industries he oversees, according to the Associated Press.

Still, Ev Liebman, of the watchdog group New Jersey Citizen Action, told the AP, "It's very troubling when we have a system that allows special interests and their money to dominate the legislative process and to get the kind of access to legislators, particularly powerful legislators, that's simply not available to rate payers, those of us who pay the bills."

Across the Delaware River, Pennsylvania no longer breaks down its total lobbying numbers for the public to inspect thanks to a two-year-old lobbyist disclosure law, which appears to have done more to obfuscate lobbying expenditures than it did to expose them.

Pennsylvania does now have an online database of quarterly expense reports filed by lobbyists, but the regulations on how the lobbyists should fill out the state-mandated forms still are not finalized.

I do know, thanks to an Associated Press analysis of the state data, that lobbyists spent $37 million in Pennsylvania during the first six months of 2007, of which nearly $1 million went to state officials for meals, plane tickets, hotel rooms and other gifts.

Now, multiply that by two and compare it to the $31,666 spent by lobbyists in New Jersey.

What's the difference between the two states? New Jersey's law requires that every gift to a legislator from a lobbyist must be spelled out along with the exact amount of money spent.

Pennsylvania's law does not.

Am I wrong to think the Legislature and Gov. Ed Rendell's administration are selling us out, and to say that we now have the best government lobbying money can secretly buy?

For example, Pennsylvania offered the movie industry this year a 25 percent tax credit on TV shows and films that spend at least 60 percent of their total budget in the Commonwealth. The program's cost is capped at $75 million this fiscal year, which ends June 30.

How did Hollywood qualify for the break? Lobbyists Leslie Merrill McCombs, a former Fox TV reporter in Pittsburgh, and Mike Veon, a once-powerful Democratic state representative from Beaver County, lobbied for it on behalf of Lionsgate, a leading independent film and TV production company based in Santa Monica, Calif.

That isn't what angered state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, chairman of the Senate State Government Committee, though.

It's the fact that McCombs didn't publicly declare that she was working on behalf of Lionsgate in her quarterly reports until after the tax break was granted. McCombs called it a "technical and brief noncompliance" that was later corrected.

"Clearly, we cannot permit lobbyists to hide what is spent on influencing the Governor and members of the General Assembly," Piccola (R-Dauphin) said in a Sept. 5 written statement. "Accountability is the key to reestablishing the public's trust in government. People who influence the law should not be above it."

Piccola's committee hired private investigators for $120 an hour to probe whether loopholes in the state's lobbying and ethics laws were exploited and to see if Veon violated a state prohibition against former lawmakwers lobbying their colleagues within a year of leaving office.

Veon was voted out of office in November 2006 after being the lone lawmaker in the state to vote against repealing the 2005 legislative pay raise. He filed to lobby on behalf of Lionsgate six months later, but state records say he didn't spend a dime.

In an e-mail to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Veon said, "I am confident that any review of the facts and the record will find that at no time ... have I lobbied anyone in the House of Representatives."

Meanwhile, McCombs lashed out at Piccola for suggesting she had an inappropriate relationship with Gov. Rendell. The governor has said he is friends with McCombs, her husband and son and has attended Pittsburgh-area sporting events with the family.

All of this was meant as but an illustration. The $75 million tax break is mere chump change by comparison to what's at stake by expanding the state's fledgling slot machine gamling industry so that it includes table games.

I did a cursory examination of the database last month and found that gambling interests spent at least $2.6 million last year to lobby lawmakers and Rendell's administration.

I say at least, because I suspect more money - possibly a lot more - is hidden from public view by virtue of gambling interests hiring one lobbyist, who in turn hired another.

Two final thoughts: Why didn't Piccola refer the movie tax break case to state Attorney General Tom Corbett, whose office has a seven-attorney public corruption unit? After all, Corbett is also leading a committee that's spent the last year drafting the disclosure regulations the lobbyists will follow?

In an unrelated ethics matter, though, Corbett said this week he would not return at least $35,000 worth of campaign contributions from now-indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples. Despite a grand jury investigation last year, DeNaples spent $67,375 last year lobbying for "casino gambling."

Given all that, is there any wonder why there's a lack of leadership on reforming the state slots law in the Legislature?

Labels: gambling, Jeffrey Piccola, lobbying, Mike Veon, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli is calling on state Attorney General Tom Corbett to return all campaign contributions he received from now-indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples.

"It is completely unacceptable to have the state's chief law enforcement officer financially tied to a person who is under indictment by a Pennsylvania grand jury for perjury, allegedly for lying about his ties to the mob and organized crime in order to obtain a gaming license," Morganelli wrote in a press release that arrived uninvited in my e-mail this morning. "Mr. Corbett's recalcitrance compromises the integrity of the Office of Attorney General."

Now put what Morganelli wrote through this prism: Morganelli is the lone announced Democrat running for state Attorney General. Corbett, the Republican incumbent, has already announced he's seeking re-election.

Corbett has refused to return DeNaples' campaign contributions to his first campaign, saying through his spokesman that DeNaples has not been convicted of perjury.

DeNaples did, however, plead no contest to a federal felony 30 years ago on a charge that he defrauded the federal government of $525,000 for cleanup work associated with Hurricane Agnes - a crime that did not bar him from obtaining a slots parlor license from the state Gaming Control Board.

Before he got the license, though, the Dunmore billionaire spread a lot of money around among the state's top elected officials. My research flound contributions from DeNaples of at least $679,375, but the state's records online are incomplete - perhaps purposely so. Some newspapers have reported that DeNaples' contributions topped $1.1 million.

At least $35,000 of DeNaples' money went to Corbett's campaign, state records show. Morganelli cites an additional $5,000 contribution to Corbett on Jan. 20, 2005, which I've been unable to verify. He also cites a Philadelphia Inquirer report that says Corbett received $55,000.

Regardless of the amount, Morganelli is troubled that Corbett has not given the money back because the Attorney General's position is one in which even the appearance of a potential conflict of interest can cause problems.

While I agree with Morganelli's premise, I think he's playing politics with an issue that should transcend politics. This is about doing the right thing ethically, whether or not the law says the contributions were legal.

Corbett should never have accepted the money from a known felon with long-rumored mob ties, no matter how rich and generous he is. But since he did, Corbett should have given the money back as soon as DeNaples was indicted. To do less calls into question his character and the character of his office.

Now, Corbett's opened himself up to political games and, dare I say, possible federal investigation.

And before you ask, I am a registered Democrat but not an ardent one. I am, however, a rod-ass when it comes to issues of good government and ethics, something I have in common with many Republican friends.

That's why I'm also calling on Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, to give back the money DeNaples gave him, which amounted to at least $115,000. Fast Eddie set the bar by accepting that cash and is still sitting on $2.25 million even though he can't run for a third straight term as governor.

It's also why I agree with the Harrisburg Patriot-News blogger Brett Lieberman, who admonished Morganelli for failing to disclose his candidacy for attorney general in the same e-mail he sent statewide this morning attacking Corbett.

Rules are rules. As a district attorney, Morganelli should know that better than most.

Finally, it's also why I stand firmly against slots gambling in this state. Not because I'm anti-gambling, I actually love blackjack and poker, but because the law was passed in such an underhanded manner, bypassing all public comment, and then rammed through the Legislature by some of the state lawmakers who took campaign contributions from DeNaples.

ANOTHER VOICE IN PENNS WOODS, ANOTHER SCANDAL

I've been around a while as a blogger, but I must admit I was unfamiliar with the Web site yardbird.com until today.

On it, writer Bill Keisling posted today, "Gov. Ed Rendell has awarded his former law firm an extremely lucrative contract to act as special counsel in the proposed privatization of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and related matters, including the proposed change of Interstate 80 into a toll road.

"The law firm, Ballard, Spahr, Andrews and Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, has billed the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania approximately $1.8 million for turnpike privatization and related legal work from March 1, 2007 to January 8, 2008, state records show. An additional invoice has been submitted in February, bringing the actual total costs to date closer to $2 million."

I won't ruin the rest of it for you, other than to say Kiesling calls it a "no-bid, no-contract contract." Nice.

Labels: Ed Rendell, gambling, John Morganelli, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is now calling on state Attorney General Tom Corbett to conduct "a thorough investigation" into whether it was the state police or the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board that screwed up before Louis DeNaples was issued a slots parlor license.

"Everybody's pointing fingers at everybody else. But, clearly, the truth is not being served," the newspaper's Saturday editorial says.

I doubt the truth would be served if Corbett did launch a probe with his unproven seven-attorney gambling corruption unit.

That's because Corbett accepted at least $35,000 in campaign contributions from DeNaples, a Dunmore billionaire and admitted felon who now stands accused of perjury for lying about his alleged ties to two reputed mobsters and two political fixers.

Corbett, who is up for re-election this year, has "no plans to give the money back," his spokesman, Kevin Harley, told the Harrisburg Patriot News little more than a week ago.

Pressure is beginning to build, though, on him, Gov. Ed Rendell, state lawmakers and judges to give back the $1.1 million DeNaples gave their campaigns until he got his slots parlor license, according to the Tribune-Review.

My research says DeNaples contributed at least $679,335. The Scranton Times-Tribune puts DeNaples' contributions at $1,002,950.

"There was never anything hidden about" the contributions, DeNaples' spokesman Kevin Feeley told the Tribune-Review. "They were ... recorded under the proper campaign election law guidelines. They are perfectly legitimate."

They were also recorded shoddily by high-ranking state officials, the Department of State or both. For instance, newspapers often quote the amount of DeNaples' money that went to Corbett as $25,000.

However, a $10,000 donation by D&L Realty, one of DeNaples' many companies, to Friends of Tom Corbett on Jan. 27, 2004 does not appear in the state's online contribution database. It does, however, show up in that campaign committee's finance report with no mention in subsequent reports of the money being returned.

"There's only one good rule," Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, told the Tribune-Review, "Return the money by certified mail, immediately."

But Harley insists Corbett won't return the cash, nor will he recuse himself from any investigations involving DeNaples. "If an issue came up ... we would investigate it," he told the Tribune-Review.

Corbett has denied a conflict of interest exists and said he opted to let Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico pursue the perjury case against DeNaples because he had already prosecuted a couple of slots parlor applicants who illegally gave contributions after the state passed the law legalizing slot machines in 2004. They each received civil fines.

Corbett has a seven-lawyer corruption unit, which was established with slots gambling in mind. But it has yet to prosecute a single casino-related corruption case in two years.

Yet, Corbett said on Feb. 28, 2006, "By creating a Public Corruption Unit, the Attorney General's Office is putting a spotlight on investigating and prosecuting public corruption cases at a crucial time in our state's history when slot machines and casino gaming is about to become reality."

By the way, the Feds were also interested in DeNaples. But while his office was probing DeNaples, Tom Marino, the U.S. Attorney for Central Pennsylvania, was one of two legal references that DeNaples used on his slots parlor application. Marino recused himself when the information leaked publicly, resigned his office and now works directly for DeNaples.

Former Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey summed the situation up nicely in the Tribune-Review, "To have contributions going to people who could have an influence on a license and have the gaming board ignore all signs along the way just stinks."

State Sen. Jake Corman told the newspaper that Corbett should probe, if necessary, but first Corman wants the state Senate to take a whack at finding out if either the state police or Gaming Control Board was being untruthful in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee about DeNaples.

"At a minimum someone has not been honest with this committee," said Corman, a Centre County Republican. "Someone made a decision to turn a blind eye on this DeNaples matter."

Sen. John Rafferty, whose Law & Justice Committee oversees the state police, is planning a hearing. He wants to do it with Sen. Jane Earll, R-Erie, who chairs a gambling oversight panel. Rafferty, R-Chester County, is viewed as pro state police. Earll, who has a casino in her district, is viewed as pro-gaming.

Earll 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."

She also has not let any slots reform legislation out of her committee in more than a year now.

It shouldn't be such a shock considering lawmakers are still being lobbied hard by the gambling industry - to the tune of at least $2.6 million last year, my research shows.

That includes the parent company of DeNaples' slots parlor, Mount Airy #1 L.L.C, which spent $67,375 lobbying lawmakers for "casino gambling" through the Philadelphia firm of S.R. Wojdak & Associates LP.

Labels: casino, gambling, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

FOLLOW UP FRIDAY - Has indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples ever faced an opposing lawyer or prosecutor he didn't hire?

He hired Sal Cognetti Jr., a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted DeNaples sucessfully in 1978 on a charge that he defrauded the federal government of $525,000 for cleanup work associated with Hurricane Agnes. The Dunmore auto parts dealer, landfill owner and banker pleaded no contest to a felony conspiracy count, paid a $10,000 fine and spent three years on probation.

Cognetti is now defending the Rev. Joseph Sica, who has been charged with perjury for lying to a Dauphin County grand jury that later indicted DeNaples for perjury. The grand jury believed the Dunmore billionaire lied to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board about his ties to reputed mobsters and political fixers.

Cognetti was also one of two law enforcement references DeNaples used on his successful slots parlor application. "You judge a man by his whole life, not something that happened 30 years ago and I think when you judge Mr. DeNaples by his whole life, he is an honorable person," Cognetti told reporters then.

The other reference came from U.S. Attorney Thomas Marino, who was supposed to be building up a federal case against DeNaples even as he secretly supported the suspect's bid for a casino.

He left office last October and was hired as DeNaples' in-house counsel two months later.

Former Gaming Control Board Chairman Thomas "Tad" Decker was supposed to be weighing the public acceptability of DeNaples' license, but the board did most of its work behind closed doors under his reign and he seems to have disregarded any of the warning flags that were blowing at hurricane strength.

As soon as DeNaples got his license in 2006, one of the first things he did was hires Decker's former Philadelphia law firm, Cozen O'Connor, to handle the financing of his $412 million resort and casino. When Decker resigned from the PGCB last year, he immediately became CEO and President of Cozen O'Connor.

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.

He never hired Attorney General Tom Corbett, but he did contribute $35,000 toward his election campaign and the state's top law enforcement officer now won't return it. Corbett opted to let Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico prosecute DeNaples, instead of having his own seven-attorney slots corruption unit handle the case.

But given this track record, one can only wonder which honorable barrister is getting his resume together next?

It reminds me of what another felon, Bob Bolus Jr., an enemy of DeNaples and a competing auto parts dealer, testified to during a public hearing on DeNaples' license.

"DeNaples will lie, cheat and even allow someone to be imprisoned to get his own way," Bolus said. "Louis feels he can just buy anyone he wants."

I guess they have their uses s long as they have a law degree.

COMBATING ILLEGAL GAMBLING VS. TREATING GAMBLING ADDICTS

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board is handing out as much as $5 million to combat illegal slots and poker machines out of its 55 percent rake from legal slots parlors, even though some law enforcement officials are confused about how the money can be spent, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

But they're not looking a gift horse in the mouth, either. For instance, the Washington County District Attorney's office received a state grant of more than $151,000 this week to establish an illegal slot machine task force so the state can defend its gambling monopoly.

However, there are already more than 200 Pennsylvanians so addicted to slot machine gambling that they've legally barred themselves from the seven operating casinos, with seven more parlors left to open, PGCB Chairwoman Mary DiGiacomo Colins testified to last month.

Yet, two bills that would require the PGCB to spend $1.5 million to $3.5 million on treatment for compulsive gamblers have been stuck in the House Committee on Gaming Oversight for more than a year.

And no offense to state Rep. Tom Creighton, but sending gamblers a monthly win-loss statement without providing additional means for them to seek help is just whitewashing over the social cost of legalized gambling.

MONEY AND LOBBYING TRUMPING PUBLIC REFORM EFFORTS

One thing I'll never understand, is why did the 2005 pay raise cause such a public outrage that it was later repealed, but no groundswell can seemingly beat back the 2004 slots law, which was similarly passed in the middle of the night on the eve of a holiday with no public debate or referendum?

And now even after the Legislature and Gov. Ed Rendell have reneged on the promise of using the extra $1 billion generated from slots for statewide property tax reform, one slots parlor owner has been indicted, and lobbyists are secretly spending at least $2.6 million to influence lawmakers, the public still isn't stirring.

What's it going to take? Will the public stay silent now that the state's estimate of $3 billion annually from the 14 slots parlors is expected to fall far short of projections while there's a bill waiting in the wings to expand the slots parlors into full fledge casinos?

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

... And I don't think it's the state police commander.

Former Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board chairman Thomas A. "Tad" Decker is once again telling newspapers that his board did not know slots parlor applicant Louis DeNaples was lying to them before they issued him a license.

"We didn't send a perjury referral," Decker told Robert Swift, the Scranton Times-Tribune's Harrisburg reporter on Wednesday. "This is just flat out not true."

Decker may sound adamant in the newspaper, but his comments are the opposite of what State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller testified to this week during back-to-back hearings at the Capitol.

Miller, a colonel, testified Tuesday that at least some of the state's seven Gaming Board members knew the state police were investigating DeNaples for lying to them, but they publicly voted unanimously to award the politically-connected Dunmore billionaire a slots parlor license anyway on Dec. 20, 2006.

DeNaples was indicted by a Dauphin County grand jury on Jan. 30 for four perjury charges alleging he lied to the gaming board about his ties to two reputed mob bosses and two corrupt Philadelphia political fixers. He had denied any wrongdoing.

To be fair, Miller apparently used the word "apparently" in his testimony, according to a report by Brad Bumsted, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's capitol reporter.

Even with that slight hesitation, though, Miller said under oath that the board should have had enough warning flags to delay a decision on DeNaples' license - a conclusion I completely agree with.

I'll even go Miller a step further, to say if David Kwait and Thomas Sturgeon, the gaming regulators' privately-hired investigators, didn't tell their bosses that they tipped the state police to DeNaples' alleged perjury, then the PGCB really is an out-of-control board.

"The board should have known because the BIE (the gaming board's own privately hired Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement) did know, because they were the ones who referred it to us in the first place," Miller told senators.

However, Gaming Board member Raymond S. Angeli, the president of Lackawanna College in Scranton, told the Times-Tribune Wednesday he heard nothing about BIE criminal referrals or a state police perjury probe during the closed door hearings about DeNaples' license application.

"I don't ever remember anyone referring anything to us that would have been a concern," Angeli said. "They (BIE) gave us no indication they were referring anything to anybody at the time of licensure."

But they appear to have done just that.

In addition to tipping the state police and Central Pennsylvania U.S. Attorney Tom Marino (who now works for DeNaples) to the possible perjury, Miller testified that Kwait and Sturgeon also told troopers that DeNaples bought 30 tractor-trailers flooded by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans for $180,000, and then allegedly sold at least one for illegal use on the open road for $75,000 rather than scrapping it. That investigation is still ongoing.

Decker has said the board opted to dismiss the truck allegation during closed door negotiations. The board referred the matter in fall 2006 to the Department of State, which later reported it "didn't have any proof there was anything illegal."

In a letter to the editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer on Feb. 14, Decker blamed the state police for failing to turn over a transcript of an FBI wiretap of DeNaples before he and the others unanimously approved his license. He also claimed it was the wiretap that triggered the perjury investigation.

Decker had an opportunity to clarify DeNaples' relationship with reputed mob boss Billy D'Elia by simply subpoenaeing D'Elia before the vote, but failed to do it.

Yet, he told the Philadelphia Daily News on Aug. 1, 2007, "We didn't find one scintilla of evidence that DeNaples had any issues."

On Tuesday, Miller testified in a 2008-09 budget hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, "Frankly, it is obvious even (former) chairman Tad Decker knew of the ongoing investigation."

Miller quoted from a letter Decker sent him on Dec. 18, 2006, which stated: "Your office may be in the possession of some important background information which may affect the suitability decision of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board with respect to an applicant for a (stand-alone casino)."

He then told lawmakers Decker "seemed to be in a hurry to grant that license (to DeNaples)."

Why would that be, I wonder?

Perhaps it's because Decker's old law firm, Cozen O'Connor, represents both DeNaples and HSP Gaming's SugarHouse Casino in Philly. Decker recused himself from SugarHouse's approval vote and O'Connor wasn't representing DeNaples during his application process. The firm was hired later to handle the financing of DeNaples' $400 million slots parlor. Meanwhile, Decker participated in all the PGCB deliberations and voted to approve DeNaples' license.

Decker was Cozen O'Connor's managing director before being hand-picked in 2004 to his $150,000 a year public post by his old college buddy, Gov. Ed Rendell. DeNaples contributed at least $115,000 toward Rendell's election campaign for governor in 2000, state records show.

Decker resigned as head of the gaming board on Aug. 8, 2007, and immediately returned to his old firm - this time as CEO and president.

Casino-Free Philadelphia, an anti-casino group, and Hallwatch.org, a good government Web site, subsequently questioned the cozy arrangement between Decker and Cozen O'Connor as a conflict of interest and a possible violation of Pennsylvania's Rules of Professional Conduct for licensed attorneys.

However, the state Supreme Court's Disciplinary Counsel dismissed their complaint. (By the way, supreme court Justice Ron Castille, a former Philly District Attorney, was Decker's law school roommate at the University of Virginia in 1971.)

Some of this may finally get sorted out soon at a hearing on the DeNaples licensing controversy before the state Senate Law and Justice Committee. The committee's chairman, Sen. John Rafferty (R-Chester) hopes to make the hearing a joint one with the Senate Community and Economic Development Committee chaired by Sen. Jane Earll, R-Erie.

Rafferty's committee has legislative oversight over the state police, while Earll's committee has oversight over the Gaming Board.

I won't hold my breath waiting, though. Earll has prevented any slots gambling reform legislation from coming to a vote in her committee for more than a year now.

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Jeffrey Miller, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tad Decker

Sixty five percent of Pennsylvania residents say property tax cuts are "not too likely" or "not likely at all" from the state's $1 billion windfall from slots parlors, a recent poll has found.

Oh, most residents (71 percent) believe the state is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to raise that much money annually from slot machine gambling by 2012. They simply don't think the added revenue will benefit them. according to a Quinnipiac University survey released last Thursday.

The university's Polling Institute surveyed 1,872 Pennsylvania voters from Feb. 21-25. Its results have a margin of error of +/- 2.3 percentage points.

Slot machines were supposed to be the linchpin for property tax reform in this state.

So far, the only ones to benefit, besides the slots parlor owners and the lawmakers they continue to lobby, have been low income seniors.

The Legislature and Gov. Ed Rendell have yet to approve a workable plan to reduce taxes for every homeowner even though half of the projected 14 slots parlors are already open.

Here's where things get a little weird.

"While Pennsylvania voters remain skeptical that slot machine gambling casino revenue will cut their taxes, the author of the plan, Gov. Ed Rendell, cruises along with a comfortable approval rating," said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the polling institute.

Although 14 percent of those polled say corruption in the operation of the slots parlors is "a major problem," and 42 percent say it is "somewhat of a problem," the issue hasn't hurt Rendell's popularity.

Fast Eddie is enjoying a 52 percent approval rating versus a 34 percent disapproval rating - almost the same as his 53-36 percent rating in a November 7, 2007, Quinnipiac poll.

However, voters split evenly (42-42 percent) on whether they approve of the way Rendell is handling slot machine gambling.

With that kind of a disconnect between the corruption issue, the failure of tax reform and Rendell, it's no wonder the lame duck governor felt safe enough this week to say through a spokesman that he is keeping the $115,000 in campaign contributions he received from indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples.

DeNaples, a Dunmore billionaire and federal felon, is accused of lying to the state Gaming Control Board about his ties to two reputed mobsters and two corrupt Philadelphia political fixers. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Richards said the poll found "a majority are concerned about corruption in the slots casinos, but about a quarter say it's not much of a problem."

If the public only knew what you now do, I doubt Rendell would be nearly as popular. Some folks have already been calling for his impeachment based solely on his failure to pass legitimate tax reform.

The poll also found that 42 percent of voters disapproved of the way the Legislature is handling its job, compared to 37 percent who approve.

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University, slots

At least some of the state's seven Gaming Control Board members knew the state police were investigating Louis DeNaples for lying to them, but they publicly voted unanimously to award the politically-connected Dunmore billionaire a slots parlor license anyway on Dec. 20, 2006.

In back-to-back hearings Tuesday, Col. Jeffrey Miller, the Pennsylvania State Police commissioner, told the Senate and House Appropriations Committees that one of his troopers told the gaming board's top agents that the investigation was ongoing when they asked about it in the weeks before the panel awarded a casino license to DeNaples, according to the Associated Press.

DeNaples was indicted Jan. 30 on four perjury charges for lying to the board about his alleged ties to two reputed mob bosses and two corrupt Philadelphia political fixers.

"The board should have known because the BIE (the gaming board's Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement) did know, because they were the ones who referred it to us in the first place," Miller told senators. He also said the bureau made three other referrals to outside agencies, including state police, on matters relating to DeNaples.

One of those outside agencies contacted was the Central Pennsylvania U.S. Attorney's office, which began its own investigation of DeNaples.

However, that probe had to be temporarily transferred in August 2007 to the federal prosecutors' Binghamton, N.Y., office after it was publicly disclosed that U.S. Attorney Thomas Marino was listed as one of two law enforcement references by DeNaples on his application for a slots parlor license.

Marino left office in October. He now works for DeNaples as in-house counsel for the billionaire's many other businesses, which include a landfill, a waste hauling business, an auto parts dealership and a motorcycle dealership as well as vast land holdings.

Because of the indictment against him, DeNaples has been suspended from a bank he chairs and the slots parlor he owns in Mount Airy. He has denied any wrongdoing and his defense attorneys have characterized the prosecution as headline-grabbing persecution by an overzealous Dauphin County District Attorney's office. The local prosecutor is handling the case with state Attorney General Tom Corbett's approval.

A gaming board spokesman refused comment on today's revelations.

In addition to tipping the state police and the feds to the possible perjury, the Gaming Control Board's investigators also alerted them to another matter involving DeNaples. They learned during their background check that DeNaples bought 30 tractor-trailers flooded by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans for $180,000, and then allegedly sold at least one for use on the open road for $75,000 rather than scrapping it.

That state police probe for alleged "title washing" is reportedly still ongoing.

However, former gaming board chairman Tad Decker has said the board opted to dismiss the truck allegation during closed door negotiations. The board referred the matter in fall 2006 to the Department of State, which later reported it "didn't have any proof there was anything illegal."

Decker has previously blamed the state police for this mess, saying if the troopers had shared what they knew before the board voted, it wouldn't have given DeNaples a license. However, it was disclosed last month that the board never subpoenaed reputed mob boss Billy D'Elia to testify, even though his 30-year friendship with DeNaples is what sparked the perjury charges.

Even if none of the above set off a red flag for the gaming board's members, this should have at least given them pause.

DeNaples is a federal felon. He pleaded no contest in 1978 to defrauding the government of more than $500,000 for cleanup work associated with Hurricane Agnes. The 2004 law legalizing slot machine gambling did not bar him from owning a slots parlor, though, because it specifically forgave any offenses older than 15 years.

The question is why?

The state Supreme Court found in 2000 (Commonwealth ex rel. Baldwin v. Richard) that former felons are barred from holding any public office, period, no matter the basis for their conviction. So why did the state specifically let felons run its casinos?

That ruling was referred to in a 2001 Commonwealth Court ruling and a 2002 state Supreme Court affirmation which barred Republican Robert C. Bolus Sr. from running for Mayor of Scranton 10 years after his felony conviction for receiving stolen property. Bolus later tried to overturn the ruling by unsuccessfully suing the Supreme Court justices in federal court.

Bolus also happens to be an enemy of DeNaples and an auto parts competitor. He blamed DeNaples in written testimony before the Gaming Control Board in 2006 for what he claimed was a wrongful conviction.

"DeNaples will lie, cheat and even allow someone to be imprisoned to get his own way," Bolus testified. "Louis feels he can just buy anyone he wants."

Some of the same justices Bolus sued may soon decide whether to let DeNaples' prosecution continue after his lawyer filed a petition to have the high court intervene and dismiss the case last month.

Lawmakers have called the situation an embarrassment, although no consensus has emerged over how to change casino licensing to avoid the same thing from happening again, according to the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, DeNaples is forbidden from walking into his own casino or profiting from it, but is still legally free to lobby lawmakers. His company, Mount Airy #1 L.L.C, spent $67,375 last year lobbying for "casino gambling" through the Philadelphia firm of S.R. Wojdak & Associates LP, state records show.

Prior to the midnight passage of the 2004 law legalizing slot machine gambling, which barred direct political donations by slots parlor applicants, DeNaples contributed at least $679,375 and possibly more than $1 million to the state's top officials.

State records are shoddy. But Gov. Ed Rendell received at least $115,000 from DeNaples in campaign contributions between 2000 and 2004, and Corbett, the state's top prosecutor, accepted at least $35,000. Spokesmen for both told the Harrisburg Patriot-News this week they won't give the money back unless DeNaples is convicted. Other recipients of DeNaples' contributions included top state lawmakers, party groups and judges.

The seven Gaming Control Board members were appointed by Rendell and the top officials from each party in both the state House and Senate. There was no public vetting of their qualifications and no confirmation process, even though board members are paid $145,000 a year.

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Jeffrey Miller, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tad Decker, Tom Corbett

Look who finally woke up to the fact that our state is drowning in legalized gambling corruption? Why, it's the Patriot-News of Harrisburg.

On Sunday, the better-late-than-never newspaper actually published a story about indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples' extensive campaign contributions to the state's top elected officials, including Gov. Ed Rendell and Attorney General Tom Corbett.

The Patriot News' says DeNaples' total contributions were "as much as $840,275" between 2000 and 2005.

In 2006, the Times-Tribune of Scranton put the total at "$1,002,950."

My own research found DeNaples had contributed at least $679,375 between 2000 and 2004 under his own name and through two of the many business the Dunmore billionaire operates, D&L Realty and RAM Consultants.

However, records in the state's online campaign contributions database are clearly incomplete.

For instance, The Patriot reported that state's top prosecutor received $15,000 from D&L Realty in 2004 and 2005. My own research says he accepted at least $35,000, including a $10,000 donation on Jan. 27, 2004 and a $25,000 donation on April 15, 2004.

I will give the Patriot points, though, for finally asking Corbett if he would give the money back now that DeNaples has been indicted on perjury charges for allegedly lying to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board about his ties to reputed mobsters.

The answer the newspaper got shouldn't surprise you.

"When those contributions were accepted, he did not have a gaming license and they were legal contributions," said Kevin Harley, a spokesman for Corbett's office. "There's no plans to give the money back."

Ditto for Gov. Ed Rendell, who accepted at least $115,000 from DeNaples (on Aug. 6 and Aug. 13, 2002). The Patriot News did not state how much Rendell's campaign accepted.

"To this point, Mr. DeNaples stands accused but not convicted," said Chuck Ardo, the governor's spokesman. "It's incumbent on everyone to allow the legal system to work before decisions are made on how to react."

"Certainly, the governor will in no way involve himself with the legal proceedings," Ardo said.

Yeah, right. Ardo forgot to add the phrase "without a 10-foot pole."

In another Patriot News story, state Rep. Will Gabig (R-Carlisle) has called on the gaming board to release its background files on DeNaples.

"Even if Mr. DeNaples' previous felony conviction and his refusal to turn his FBI file over to investigators, as he was required to do so under the law, were not enough to raise questions in board members' minds ... certainly the fact that the board's own investigators believe he lied to them should have been," Gabig said in a statement. "... The board has some explaining to do regarding its decision to grant a license to someone who did not cooperate with their investigation."

It's worse than Gabig knows.

The gaming board never subpoenaed reputed mob boss Billy D'Elia, whose long friendship with DeNaples is what sparked the perjury charges in the first place. D'Elia's attorney said he would have been more than willing to testify.

Second, the board knew about but ignored an incident in which DeNaples was accused of selling at least one of 30 Hurricane Katrina-wrecked tractor-trailers for over-the-road hauling, rather than as scrap.

And who appointed the Gaming Control Board members in the first place? Why it was Rendell along with legislatives leaders in the state House and the Senate, many of whom also accepted campaign contributions from DeNaples.

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

Busy news weekend on the Louis DeNaples front.

First off, the now-indicted slots parlor owner was praised by a Roman Catholic bishop on Friday for helping fund the University of Scranton's new $35 million student center, which is named for DeNaples' parents.

"I congratulate the DeNaples family," said Scranton Bishop Joseph F. Martino. "I don't know what I'd do without the assistance I receive from this wonderful family."

DeNaples, who faces perjury charges for lying to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board about alleged mob ties, and the Rev. Joseph Sica, a family friend also charged with perjury in the case, joined more than 700 people for the dedication and Mass on Friday at the Patrick and Margaret DeNaples Center.

Two days later, though, DeNaples was the subject of two other articles far less flattering.

The Dunmore billionaire was the subject of a criminal probe just last year for buying 30 tractor-trailers flooded by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans for $180,000, and allegedly selling at least one for use on the open road for $75,000 rather than scrapping it, The Morning Call of Allentown reported Sunday.

State Police, acting on a referral from the FBI, began investigating the case early last year as possible "title washing" of the Katrina trucks, Ralph Periandi, a former deputy commissioner for the staties, told the newspaper.

A law enforcement source said the investigation remains open and the gaming board knew of that probe before issuing a license to DeNaples, former PGCB Chairman Tad Decker said.

Decker also said the board referred the matter in fall 2006 to the Department of State. The gaming board dismissed the incident, though, after the department reported it "didn't have any proof there was anything illegal."

DeNaples is a federal felon. He pleaded no contest in 1978 to defrauding the government of more than $500,000 for cleanup work associated with Hurricane Agnes. The 2004 law legalizing slot machine gambling did not bar him from owning a slots parlor, though, because it specifically forgave any offenses older than 15 years.

Meanwhile, Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico has denied DeNaples' defense allegations that he is an ambitious prosecutor who misused a county grand jury to help the state police win a turf war with the Gaming Control Board.

Marsico told The Times-Tribune of Scranton that he simply is "going where the evidence leads" in the case against DeNaples.

The paper's Harrisburg reporter, Robert Swift, pressed Marsico on the whole jurisdiction question, namely why a Dauphin County DA is prosecuting a Lackawanna County man concerning a casino he owns in Monroe County.

In an opinion filed last December when the Supreme Court allowed the DeNaples grand jury proceedings to resume, now-retired Chief Justice Ralph Cappy warned against the Dauphin County DA elevating himself to a super prosecutor of gaming violations "due mainly to the geographic circumstance that he presides in the county where the politically charged gaming legislation was enacted."

But Marsico countered, "We didn't self-elevate ourselves to anything. The state police brought to us this investigation because the hearing where the alleged perjury occurred took place in our jurisdiction."

Marsico said state police previously asked him to handle prosecution of several individuals who ran afoul of the act's provisions regulating political campaign contributions. These minor cases were settled with regulatory fines and without criminal charges.

His answer jives with one given by state Attorney General Tom Corbett, who said he opted to let Marsico prosecute DeNaples - rather than have the state's seven-attorney gambling corruption unit take the case - because the local prosecutor was already working on other gambling-related cases. The corruption unit has yet to bring a single gambling-related prosecution.

Corbett, who is up for reelection, has denied his decision to let Marsico proceed was made because DeNaples contributed at least $35,000 to Corbett's first election campaign. However, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, the sole candidate to file for the Democratic party's nomination for state Attorney General, has already made those donations a campaign issue.

Labels: casino, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

Senate Bill 862 didn't get much public notice on Nov. 1, 2006, the day Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell signed it into law.

In fact, the governor's own press release focuses first on Rendell signing the state's purposely-weak Lobbyist Disclosure Act, H.B. 700. The act didn't mandate that lobbyists say who they lobbied, specifically why and how much was spent, just that they state a total amount of how much they spend each quarter (if its more than $2,500), who they work for and a brief explanation as to the issue being lobbied.

Meanwhile, S.B. 862, which was never given another name, may offer the public more real disclosure - so long as they're willing to play detective.

The law amended the 2004 slots law to prohibit public employees from owning a part of any slots parlors or receiving any compensation from one. It also required the state Ethics Commission to draft a list annually saying which state employees might qualify.

Well, two years later, the lists were finally posted online on Feb. 12. As is typical, (Why should they make it easy?) the ethics commission opted not to require the name of the person who would be covered by the law, just their job title.

To the ethics board, it all boiled down to one question, "Does the county, municipality, department, agency, board, commission, authority or governmental body that you serve directly receive a distribution of revenue under the Gaming Act?"

Anyone who answers "Yes" to is a "public official" under the act and therefore barred from making money from a slots parlor.

For instance, not only is Gov. Ed Rendell barred by this law, so is the state's Secretary of Administration, Secretary of the Budget, General Counsel, Inspector General, the Deputy Secretary Comptroller Operations, Deputy Secretary for Performance Improvement, Deputy Secretary Human Resources Management, Deputy Secretary Information Technology, and the Executive Deputy Secretary of the Budget.

What good knowing their job titles and not their names will actually do, is anybody's guess.

Still, that's more disclosure than by either the House of Representatives or the Senate. Their lists of "executive level public employees" are still "TBD - Under Review."

Believe it or not, that's considered OK in Slotsylvania, even though seven of the 14 planned slots parlor in the state are already raking in millions.

The Ethics Commission has the lawmakers covered by noting on its Web site, "The Gaming Act List is a work-in-progress. At this time, the Gaming Act List should not be considered a complete listing of positions meeting the aforementioned definitions.

"Additionally, even after the Gaming List has been substantially completed, it will continue to be subject to change as positions are created, modified, or eliminated."

I guess that answers the question I posed yesterday on why Attorney General Tom Corbett's seven-person gambling corruption unit hasn't had a single gambling-related prosecution in its two years of existence.

If the state cannot even determine who a public employee in a timely manner, what hope do the prosecutors have?

Labels: Ed Rendell, ethics, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

Like many other newspapers across the state, The Altoona Mirror came out today in support of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board transferring background investigations of potential slots parlor owners to the state police in the wake of perjury charges against slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples.

Although DeNaples denies any wongdoing, Dauphin County prosecutors allege he lied to the gambling board about his alleged ties with two reputed mobsters and two Philadelphia political fixers.

"Chairwoman Mary DiGiacomo Colins recently told lawmakers unless a change occurs the same situation could happen again," the Mirror's editorial says. "We agree, but we disagree with Colins on the cure. Colins wants state police to give gambling regulators a heads-up when they have a potential licensee under investigation without providing details. A better solution is to hand over the duty of doing background checks to a police agency, rather than a regulatory one, such as the Gaming Control Board."

While I agree with the Mirror somewhat, I'm adamant that transferring the preliminary probe of a slots parlor applicant is no cure.

And if that's the only "reform" that happens now that the Dunmore billionaire has been indicted, it won't even be a sugar pill, just a bitter one we'll all have to swallow later.

The 2004 law legalizing slot machine gambling is inherently flawed. How could it not be since it was illegally rushed into existence and passed on the eve of the July 4 holiday without any public debate - all in the name of property tax relief that most homeowners in the state now won't receive?

The law:

• Does not require the gaming board to hold all applications hearings and its deliberations in public view.
• 
  
  
• Does not outlaw lobbying by gambling interests, only direct campaign contributions. It's still legal for a slots parlor owner to hand money to a lobbyist who donates it to a lawmaker. Last year, DeNaples spent $67,375 last year lobbying, state records show. However, the state's lobbying disclosure law doesn't require him to say which lawmakers benefited from it.
• 
  
  
• Does not require that some of the state's $1 billion rake from slots gambling be used to treat gambling addiction, even though Colins told lawmakers that more than 200 citizens across Pennsylvania have already been "self-excluded" from the state's seven operating slots parlors. One is likely a woman who gambled away $573,000 at Harrah's Chester Casino.

Labels: casino, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

I've got a nasty cold, so don't read this with an eye for cohesion. In fact, I openly admit today's post is purely stream of consciousness because I'm writing it under the influence of an over-the-counter drug cocktail. Deal with it or I'll cough on you.

You can tell I'm on drugs because the first thing I'm going to do is praise - you heard me right - praise the folks running the State Employees' Retirement System. Somehow, they managed to reap a 17.2 percent rate of return last year, earning a whopping $5.2 billion.

Guess those investments in booze, oil, gambling and defense contractor stocks are paying off. Just kidding, the only thing squirrely on a list of the system's investments was just the name "Fidelity Real Estate Opportunistic Income Fund."

But if being oppportunistic pays, more power to 'em. How many of us in the private sector wish we could have done so well with our 401(k)s?

By having such a great year, the system now projects the taxpayers' share toward state employee retiree benefits will cost less than 8 percent of the state's payroll in 2012 - instead of the 28 percent forecasted just five years ago.

If you that forecast was fubared, just ask Philly Mayor Michael Nutter what he's facing thanks to the city's underfunded retirement plan.

Hell, I hope PHEAA hires a few of those SERS folks away. The huge egos over at the student-loan agency, which is suspending its federal loans, could not forsee the subprime mortgage crisis rocking the bond market too and now college students are paying the price. Duh!

BOOZE ON WHEELS, PLANE FOR SALE

This one must be brought to you by the same geniuses who thought it was cool to allow motorcyclists to drive without helmets and don't see a correlation with the resulting increase in brain damage and fatalities.

Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board spokesman Nick Hays says the idea of mobile liquor stores is just one of several possibilities the agency is weighing to make wine and hard liquor more available in rural parts of the state, I kid you not.

Believe it or not, that was the best Hays could spin the idea Board chairman P.J. Stapleton mentioned during a Senate hearing on the PLCB's budget, Hays also noted it's not a priority for the agency.

What a state! We can't afford bookmobiles, additional funds for meals on wheels, and are reduced to art on a cart in some school districts, but we can afford to drive around the countryside delivering booze to doorsteps like the milkmen of old?

Money is so tight now, that Gov. Ed Rendell is selling half of his air force - if you can call a two-jet fleet that.

To save money, Fast Eddie want to sell the older and smaller of the two jets, a 1982 Beech King Air 200, for $1.3 million.

SLOTS TO EXPLAIN

In a pair of hearings held in the state Capitol Wednesday, House Republicans criticized what they called weaknesses in the current slots law, while the Senate Appropriations Committee called on the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to defend its performance.

Some lawmakers who opposed the state's 2004 legalization of slot machines cited the perjury charges against Mount Airy Casino Resort owner Louis DeNaples as evidence.

"We all look funny with this," Sen. James J. Rhoades, R-Schuylkill, told gaming board members and staff. "Dealing with gaming, we have to be beyond any reproach."

Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, called it a "black mark" as he and other senators asked gaming board officials what changes should be made.

The board's own investigators believed DeNaples lied about his relationship with reputed mob boss Billy D'Elia, but couldn't prove it. They alerted the state police, who began investigating DeNaples, but did not tell the board. Nor did the board subpoena D'Elia before issuing a license to DeNaples on Dec. 21, 2006.

Labels: Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, PHEAA, PLCB, SERS, slots

To state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, slot machine gambling preys on the poor, breeds destructive behavior and hurts local economies.

So, that's what the Republican from Dauphin County told leaders in the industry while delivering the keynote address today at the 4th annual Pennsylvania Gaming Congress & Mid-Atlantic Racing Forum in Harrisburg.

An outspoken critic of the state law legalizing slot machines in Pennsylvania, Piccola was chosen after Gaming Control Board Chairwoman Mary DiGiacomo Colins withdrew in protest to the event's sponsor, Spectrum Gaming Group of New Jersey.

Fred Gushin, CEO of Spectrum, told The Morning Call of Allentown last year that the control board's licensing of applicants was "an overtly political process instead of an exercise in regulatory control. It was a disaster in the making."

And Piccola hammered that point home to the casino operators and suppliers today, saying, "The process is inherently flawed if the staff that you are relying on for accurate information does not have direct access to the information that it so desperately needs."

He was referring to privately hired investigators who did the background check on now-indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples, but never named him specifically.

The investigators believed DeNaples lied about his relationship with reputed mob boss Billy D'Elia, but couldn't prove it. They alerted the state police, who began investigating DeNaples, but did not tell the board. Nor did the board subpoena D'Elia before issuing a license to DeNaples on Dec. 21, 2006.

DeNaples maintains his innocence. "The facts are that the (bureau) and the board investigated Mr. DeNaples for nearly 2,000 hours before finding him suitable for a license," DeNaples spokesman Kevin Feeley told the Citizens Voice on Monday. "Now after the fact, it's become fashionable to use Mr. DeNaples as a scapegoat."

But Piccola told the crowd of about 100 today, "I'm here to tell you that a legislative response to this present controversy is inevitable. Many of you are going to pay the price if we don't do it over."

Among other proposed reforms, Piccola wants to put the state Attorney General's office in charge of licensing applicants so that office can utilize information in law enforcement hands.

To see a video of his speech in Windows Media Player, click here.

PHEAA SUSPENDS FEDERAL STUDENT LOANS

The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Authority decided two weeks ago to suspend loans made outside the state through the Federal Family Education Loan Program, but didn't announce it until this afternoon.

The agency will soon send out notices to colleges and universities that it will suspend in-state loans effective March 7, acting president and chief executive officer James Preston told lawmakers.

"Right now, it's not profitable for us at all to finance (FFELP) loans," Preston told a House committee during a hearing on the agency's budget. He cited the subprime mortgage mess and chaos in the bond market for making the loans too expensive.

Instead, the agency will steer prospective borrowers to banks that are still participating in the $50 billion program. PHEAA provides federally subsidized, low-cost student loans to about 500,000 Pennsylvania students annually.

Labels: casino, Jeffrey Piccola, Louis DeNaples, Mary DiGiacomo Colins, Pennsylvania, PHEAA, slots

He may be bound by Omerta not to rat on other made guys, but reputed Northeastern Pennsylvania mob boss Billy D'Elia would have gladly sung like a canary about his long-time friendship with now-indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples.

But nobody - certainly not the Slotsylvania Gaming Control Board - ever subpoenaed him, D'Elia's attorney, James Swetz of Stroudsburg, has told The Morning Call of Allentown.

"He would have testified and he would have answered any questions truthfully that were posed to him about whether or not he knew Mr. DeNaples, and Bill has known him for 30 years," Swetz said.

Tad Decker, the out-of-control board's former chairman, said the regulators could have used their weak subpoena power to compel D'Elia's testimony, without the ability to grant immunity, "But we were told he would come and take the Fifth and he wouldn't testify."

He declined to tell the newspaper who told the board that.

Swetz said neither he nor his client did. "With all due respect to Mr. Decker, he may have assumed that Mr. D'Elia wouldn't testify, but he certainly never asked me that. And if he had, the answer may have surprised him."

It's partly because of his alleged relationship with D'Elia that DeNaples, a Dunmore billionaire, has been indicted for perjury for lying to the gaming board. DeNaples told both the board and a Dauphin County grand jury that he only knew D'Elia as "a guy from the neighborhood" who shopped at his auto parts store.

But Swetz said, "Mr. D'Elia's association with Louis DeNaples is not simply from across the auto parts counter, as Mr. DeNaples has stated. They've known each other for a long time."

D'Elia, who is in federal custody awaiting trial on charges of money laundering and conspiring to kill a witness, told the grand jury he had close ties to DeNaples as a friend and business associate. He said he frequently met with DeNaples at his private office at DeNaples Auto Parts in Dunmore and that DeNaples was a guest at the 1999 wedding of D'Elia's daughter.

Had D'Elia told gaming board investigators that, the board would not have issued DeNaples a slots license, Decker said. "Absolutely not."

Private investigators performing a background check on DeNaples for the board did ask to interview D'Elia, but Swetz said he directed them to federal prosecutors in Harrisburg and then never heard from the Gaming Control Board again.

So much for due diligence and the board's current theory that the state police's refusal to share criminal information is to blame for this mess.

In other Slotsylvania news:

• Mafia book author Charles Brandt, who has read the grand jury presentments against DeNaples, told The Citizens Voice of Wilkes-Barre that Dauphin County prosecutors may have a hard time proving their perjury case. "I found the questions inartfully crafted, and they left lots of wiggle room," Brandt said.
• 
  
  
• DeNaples' spokesman, Philly PR guy Kevin Feeley, was profiled in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. Among the other clients he's trying to spin is the city tax board which lost the file on Sen. Vince Fumo's $6 million mansion.
• 
  
  
• Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, the sole candidate to file for the Democratic party's nomination for state Attorney General, has begun to attack Republican incumbent Tom Corbett for accepting at least $35,000 in campaign contributions from DeNaples.
• 
  
  
• The Morning Call has caught on to my idea that state Rep. Harold James (D-Philadelphia) is purposely dragging his feet and refusing to bring any slots reform bills up for a vote in the House Gaming Oversight Committee he chairs.
• 
  
  
• Two of the bills the Oversight Committee has pigeonholed, H.B. 1715 and H.B. 1975, would require $1.5 million to $3.5 million from the state's rake of slots gambling be used to treat gambling addicts. Gaming Board Chairwoman Mary DiGiacomo Colins testified last week that already 200 people across the state have excluded themselves from the state's seven open slots parlors. One of them is likely a woman who gambled away $573,000 at a Harrah's Chester Casino. She is now cited as a statistic in Casino-Free Philadelphia's Operation Hidden Costs, an anti-casino study it plans to unveil Wednesday.

Labels: Billy D'Elia, casino, Harold James, Kevin Feeley, Louis DeNaples, Mary DiGiacomo Colins, Pennsylvania, slots, Tad Decker, Tom Corbett

Well, that "noisy debate" at Tuesday's state budget hearing turned out to be a bit of a bust, with the most friction occurring between two lawmakers and not with the head of the state Gaming Control Board.

State Rep. Douglas Reichley (R-Lehigh county) tried to grill board chairwoman Mary DiGiacomo Colins at length about why she and other board members approved a license for now-indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples.

But Reichley was shut down after about 15 minutes by House Budget Committee Majority Chairman Dwight Evans (D-Philly) for going off topic during the House's first public budget hearing of the year.

Evans said he has asked the House Gaming Oversight to hold hearings on Mt. Airy's licensing and suggested that would be a better forum for Reichley's questions. More on that in a bit.

The real news today is that DeNaples, a Dunmore billionaire, asked a Dauphin County court judge to dismiss the perjury charges against him, arguing in a court filing that:

• Prosecutors never proved that statements Louis A. DeNaples made to state gambling investigators were false. (I thought that was the whole purpose of a trial? It apparently was enough to convince a grand jury.)
• 
  
  
• Dauphin County prosecutors gave inadequate instructions for the grand jury to understand the legal requirements for a perjury charge.
• 
  
  
• DeNaples was never questioned about some of the occurrences that prosecutors say help prove that he lied about the extent of his relationships with two reputed mobsters and two Philly political fixers.
• 
  
  
• Some lines of questioning by state Gaming Control Board investigators were so vague that DeNaples' answers could not prove that he lied.

Labels: casino, Douglas Reichley, Dwight Evans, Ed Rendell, Harold James, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots

I'm going to make this quick tonight because I want to watch the Pennsylvania Cable Network's rebroadcast of a state House Appropriations committee hearing for the Gaming Control Board at 8 p.m.

Ok, I'm an obsessed geek and this sounds like a real yawner, huh?

But wait, this morning's hearing reportedly turned into a raucous pissing match between the state's gambling regulators and the state police over who is to blame for the slots parlor license given to indicted Dunmore billionaire Louis DeNaples.

The Associated Press called it "a noisy debate" right in its lede this afternoon.

I call it must-see TV and even plan to record it. (I wonder if I'll get sued if I put it on YouTube?)

The AP reports that Gaming Control Board chairwoman Mary DiGiacomo Colins told lawmakers that the state police had no legal reason to stay silent about their perjury investigation into DeNaples.

"I believe we did everything a regulatory agency could do," Colins said, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "We believed we had everything we needed."

Don't have PCN on your cable lineup. No worries, you can watch a streaming rebroadcast on PCN's Web site at 8 p.m. so long as you have Apple's QuickTime program.

In other racino and slots news, the Pennsyltucky Politics blog bashes Gov. Ed Rendell - not for failing to show up at none of the openings of the state's seven slots parlors, as state Rep. Paul Clymer takes Rendell to task for - but for treating his fellow Slotsylvanians with utter disdain.

"These are people who lead very gray lives," Rendell said of the senior citizens who flock to casinos in a 2006 interview with the Lancaster New Era, the Patriot-News' Brett Lieberman writes.

"They don't see their sons and daughters very much. They don't have much social interaction," Rendell said. "There's not a whole lot of good things that happen in their month. But if you put them on the bus, they're excited. They're happy. They have fun. They see bright lights. They hear music. They pull that slot machine and with each pull they think they have a chance to win... . It's unbelievable what brightness and cheer it brings to older Pennsylvanians. Unbelievable."

Unbelievable is right.

Or as Clymer (R-Bucks) wrote last week in a letter to the editor, "In his first term, Gov. Rendell aggressively promoted the social and economic benefits of this dubious industry. Property tax relief for all was his standard cry. When the General Assembly passed the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development and Gaming Act in the midnight hours of July 4, 2004, Gov. Rendell made a beeline for Philadelphia Park (Bensalem, PA) to sign the bill into law legalizing up to 61,000 slot machines.

"Now, he cannot be found at any grand opening. Is it too much to question his whereabouts? It seems to me that Gov. Rendell has shunned the casino crowd."

Too bad he didn't shun DeNaples' political contributions too, but that's another story.

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Mary DiGiacomo Colins, Pennsylvania, slots

Gambling interests in Pennsylvania spent at least $2.6 million last year to sway state lawmakers and Gov. Ed Rendell's administration, according to the state's own records.

I say at least, because state officials have done their best to hide this information from the public without being drummed out of office for failing to disclose it.

So, they did the next best thing, they obfuscated, burying those expenses in with perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars that companies with other interests spent last year to influence Harrisburg.

The $2,628,898 in lobbying expenses I calculated tonight came from the state's lobbying expenditure database and I'm sure represent a large portion, but not all, of the money spent last year solely by companies with gambling interests.

I used the state Senate's old lobbying database, which named the companies who lobbied for gambling-related reasons in 2003 to 2006. I then looked those companies up in the new state lobbying expenditure database, which covers both the House and the Senate as well as Rendell's administration.

In the process, I found three new entities with gambling interests that spent money lobbying last year but not the year before, which are denoted in this chart with an asterisk. They are:

• Casino Free Philadelphia, a not-for-profit corporation, spent $55,160 on lobbying in 2007 hoping to defeat the casinos planned for the city.
• 
  
  
• Harrah's Operating Co., Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Harrah's Entertainment, which has stopped lobbying under that name in the state. It spent $122,200 last year lobbying.
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• The Pennsylvania Family Council shares the same Web site and president as the Pennsylvania Family Institute, which no longer lobbies in the state under that name. It spent $208,111, but like many of the lobbying companies whose expense reports I checked today, it did not name the reasons why.
  
  PFC's Web site, however, currently features a link to the same story I ranted about Sunday, namely a Citizen's Voice article that says lobbyists for holders and seekers of casino licenses spent nearly $1.7 million last year to influence state lawmakers.

Labels: casino, lobbying, Pennsylvania, slots

As I blogged yesterday, Pennsylvania has done its best to hide the 2007 lobbying expenses of gambling interests by lumping them into a database with all other lobbyists and special interests with no clear way to break them out separately.

After all, there is no better place to hide a tree than in a forest.

However, the powers-that-be in Slotsylvania forgot that the state Senate had a database of lobbyists which did breakout the lobbying expenses of gambling interests.

The list below represents 83 different gambling-related companies known to have spent a total of $16 million lobbying the 50 state senators between 2003 and 2006. I merely copied the names of the companies down, alphabetized the list and then eliminated all the duplication.

I then checked each name with the state's new lobbying expenditure database and hyperlinked the names I found there with the company's lobbying expense reports.

This list is by no means complete. For instance, I did not include any names listed in a short-lived executive branch lobbyist database, since the data contained there did not breakdown the reason why the companies were lobbying Gov. Ed Rendell's administration.

For now, it's not too bad for a do-it-yourself Slotsylvania lobbying guide and is probably the best list available to the public currently.

New gambling interests not recorded in the Senate's database but found/stumbled upon in the statewide one are denoted with an asterisk.

I will be adding a complete breakdown of the lobbying expenses I found later tonight. Watch for it.

UPDATE: To read my later blog post on the lobbying reports of gambling interests, click here. To see a chart of which gambling interests lobbied and how much they spent, click here.

Labels: casino, lobbying, Pennsylvania, slots

Here's where the fun(house) begins.

Lawyers for indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples have appealed his perjury charges to the state Supreme Court, the same cast of characters - minus one, former Chief Justice Ralph Cappy - that rubberstamped the Legislature legalizing slot machine gambling in the first place despite clear violations of the state Constitution in the way the law was passed.

This after DeNaples, a Dunmore billionaire, spread at least $679,375 and possibly more than $1 million in political contributions around among the state's governor, top prosecutor, key lawmakers, judges and party groups to get slot machine gambling legalized and to obtain a slots parlor license.

Somebody save me a ticket to this well-scripted and choreographed show. The dancing alone should be spectacular.

Is it any wonder that DeNaples' appeal was filed last Monday and the press didn't find out about until Friday night?

I've long figured three things might happen at this point:

1. DeNaples's attorneys argue the merit-worthy jurisdictional question. What right did the Dauphin County prosecutors have to empanel a grand jury about what is essentially state business? If state Attorney General Tom Corbett had thought DeNaples perjured himself before the state Gaming Control Board, he would have empaneled a statewide grand jury, which he didn't.

There's one flaw with that logic. While Corbett had authority to investigate DeNaples, he chose to permit Dauphin County District Attorney Edward Marsico to pursue him because the county prosecutor had already begun delving into other gambling-related matters.

However, Corbett also had a clear-cut conflict of interest. He accepted at least $35,000 from DeNaples in political contributions when he first ran for attorney general.

Did he let a jurisdictionally questionable prosecution occur knowing it might eventually protect his benefactor?

2. The DeNaples' camp runs a smear campaign against Marsico, arguing prosecutorial misconduct and claiming both grandstanding (which they've already alleged publicly) and possibly selective prosecution.

3. The attorneys take the long-term approach of dragging things out so that when DeNaples, 67, finally dies, his estate can sue to reclaim its ownership of Mount Airy Casino Resort and his half of the profits since the charges would never have been proven.

Looks like DeNaples and his lawyers are about to take a number one and number two all over the passe ideas of truth and justice in the state of Slotsylvania. Not that the high court, Corbett, the Gaming Control Board, the Legislature and the Governor haven't all taken turns soiling those ideas already in this giant, corrupt circle jerk.

Kevin Feeley, a spokesman for DeNaples, told the Times Leader of Wilkes-Barre that the appeal renews DeNaples' argument that Marsico overstepped his authority and the grand jury that issued the indictment was not properly empanelled.

Attorney Richard Sprague of Philadelphia previously tried to make the same argument before the high court, but the justices refused to hear its merits after ruling in December that the appeal was premature because, at that time, no indictment had been issued, Feeley said.

Now that the grand jury has indicted DeNaples - finding on Jan. 30 that he lied to both the them and the Gaming Control Board about his alleged ties to mob bosses and corrupt Philly fixers based partly on FBI wiretaps - the court can hear the merits.

Feeley told the TL that DeNaples remains confident the charges will dismissed before the case ever gets to trial. "Next week, you will begin to see phase one of our defense. There are going to be some very aggressive steps taken to make people understand this prosecution is outrageous and ultimately doomed to fail,: he said.

Although DeNaples has been banned by the gaming board from his own slots parlor - and its profits - until the perjury charges are settled, the casino still remains profitable. The week after DeNaples' indictment, gross terminal revenue at Mount Airy was up more than 13 percent to $2.7 million. Betting totaled $41.5 million, up more than ten percent over the previous week.

The question now is for how long, considering I've never heard of a casino with bad credit before?

Mount Airy defaulted on more than $400 million in debt when DeNaples was arrested, leading two national credit rating services to downgrade the slot parlor's credit rating this week, the Citizens Voice of Wilkes-Barre said Friday.

While there is no indication that lender JPMorgan Chase will foreclose on the debt, Mount Airy has lost direct access to a $25 million revolving line of credit with the investment bank and now has to ask JPMorgan Chase permission to tap it.

Also, Standard and Poor's downgraded ratings for the corporate bonds issued to fund the construction of Mount Airy from "B", meaning a "speculative investment", to "CCC", indicating "a strong likelihood of default in the next year," Craig Parmelee, a managing director for Standard and Poor's credit rating service, told the newspaper.

Labels: casino, Ed Marsico, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

I hope this will become a continuing feature on The Daily Rant on Fridays, so I can empty my mind and my notebook of some incremental changes in stories I'm following.

Tad Decker finally gets it!

In a letter to the editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday, former Slotsylvania Gaming Board Chairman Tad Decker once again blames the state police for failing to turn over a transcript of an FBI wiretap before he and others unanimously approved a license for now-indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples.

"By letter of Dec. 20, 2006, state police Commissioner Col. Jeffrey Miller advised the board that it was in a position to determine the suitability of all applicants, including Louis DeNaples, even though the state police now admit it knew at the time this statement was untrue," Decker wrote. "The state police's misrepresentation violated the act and its agreements with the board and the governor's office and did a terrible disservice to the commonwealth's citizens."

Decker later told the Associated Press, "Because of what (the state police) did, it was an embarrassment of issuing a license to someone who potentially - potentially - may have done something wrong in the process."

DeNaples now faces eight counts of perjury after a Dauphin County grand jury found that he lied to both them and the gaming board about his alleged ties to organized crime.

"Their own agents thought he was lying," Bruce Edwards, president of the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, shot back in an article in today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Personally, I don't care what the state police letter said or about its pissing match with the control board, which hired private investigators instead of letting troopers handle the background investigations of slots parlor license applicants.

There was plenty of anecdotal evidence in the public domain (namely DeNaples' 1976 federal felony and his name appearing in Pennsylvania Crime Commission reports) tying DeNaples to reputed and indicted Northeastern Pennsylvania mob boss Billy D'Elia. DeNaples also gave at least $115,000 in political contributions to Decker's "close friend," Gov. Ed Rendell.

That alone should have given Decker and the rest of the board pause before they embarrassed the state.

By the way, it was Rendell who appointed Decker, a Philadelphia attorney, to both the board and the chairmanship and it was Rendell who later defended him against allegations that Decker too had a conflict of interest with another slots parlor applicant.

In other Slotsylvania casino news:

• New Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter told reporters Friday that his city budget does not count on any revenue from any of the seven slots parlots now operating within the state.
  
  "We know it's out there," Nutter said. "It's not in our pocket so we're not counting it."
  
  That's prudent plannning Mr. Mayor and I applaud you for it, even though part of that money is supposed to be used eventually to lower Philly's wage tax.
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• State Senator Jeffrey Piccola (R-Dauphin County) will deliver the keynote address at the 4th annual Pennsylvania Gaming Congress & Mid-Atlantic Racing Forum, February 25-26 at the Whitaker Center and Harrisburg Hilton.
  
  Piccola, a member of the senate's Community, Economic and Recreational Development Committee, unsuccessfully threatened to shut down the state amid budget talks last year while trying to reform the slots parlor law.
  
  Gaming Board Chairwoman and former Philly judge Mary DiGiacomo Colins was supposed to deliver that address. However, she withdrew after the CEO of the event's sponsor, Fred Gushin of Spectrum Gaming Group of New Jersey, openly criticized the board's licensing process.
  
  Gushin told The Morning Call of Allentown in September that the control board's licensing of applicants was "an overtly political process instead of an exercise in regulatory control. It was a disaster in the making."
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• Monthly casino revenue was down 10 percent in January in Atlantic City, marking the 12th month out of the last 13 that revenues have fallen, the Associated Press reported this week. Last year was the first in the 30-year history of A.C. casino gambling that revenues decreased from the previous year.

N.J. student loan agency gets a monitor, freespending PHEAA doesn't.

New Jersey Attorney General Ann Milgram has appointed an independent monitor to watchover the state's Higher Education Student Assistance Authority after a state investigation found troublesome lending practices, including the steering of students to Sallie Mae loans.

HESAA and 41 New Jersey colleges have also agreed that their financial aid officers will no longer take gifts from loan companies. Milgram said gifts in the past have given some lenders an unfair inside track.

No one knows if that is happening across the river, but we may know by June when state Auditor Gener Jack Wagner is expected to complete his first-ever audit of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Authority.

PHEAA has spent millions over the years rewarding its executives with hefty bonuses, expensive trips for its lawmaker-dominated board and even renting all of HersheyPark for a day. Yet, despite Rendell calling it "a disaster" and threatening to privatize the authority, only internal changes have been made.

Pink pig dreams deflated.

Government reform activist Gene Stilp, who became famous for floating a giant inflatable pink pig in Harrisburg after the 2005 legislative pay raise, has ended his candidacy for the 104th state House seat in Dauphin County, citing personal reasons.

Last Friday, Stilp, 57, of Middle Paxton Township, said "emerging family health issues" would keep him from devoting the necessary time to his campaign to unseat incumbent state Rep. Sue Helm.

My thoughts are with him and his family.

Labels: Billy D'Elia, casino, Ed Rendell, Gene Stilp, Jeffrey Piccola, Louis DeNaples, Mary DiGiacomo Colins, Michael Nutter, Pennsylvania, PHEAA, Philadelphia, slots, Tad Decker

Labels: Barack Obama, Common Cause, Ed Rendell, Hillary Clinton, Open Records, Pennsylvania

If that isn't your worst nightmare in an emergency then you probably missed the sad, fiery death of Brenda Orr, 53, of Doylestown, Bucks County, on Jan. 29.

Bed ridden with multiple sclerosis and a quadriplegic, Orr somehow managed to hit 9-1-1 on her cell phone while her bed was on fire and then waited six rings - a full 27 seconds - for somebody, anybody to pick up.

When a dispatcher finally did, he immediately asked if she could be placed on hold.

"I can't!" she reportedly pleaded. "This is an emergency! 911 emergency! Three-four-zero Doyle! Bed on fire!"

Despite her pleas, the seemingly distracted male dispatcher handed the call off to a female one and 28 seconds went by before she picked up.

There was crosstalk as Orr tried to tell the female dispatcher she lives in Doylestown Borough, not the township. The dispatcher asked if she wants to get out of the house, which is when Orr said she can't because she's disabled.

"The bed is fully inflamed," Orr said.

Then silence.

A minute later firefighters were dispatched and arrived on scene within five minutes. By then it was too late, the flames had grown too intense for them to rescue Orr. Four of them, including Doylestown Borough Fire Marshal David Cell, suffered minor injuries trying to enter her ranch home.

Orr's death from smoke and soot inhalation has officially been labeled accidental, with fire officials focusing on her smoking in bed or the multitude of electrical devices in the bedroom as possible causes.

But Orr's family and the public have been left wondering if those crucial and agonizing seconds unacceptably wasted on the recorded call might have made the difference between life and death.

A county investigation found that there were 10 dispatchers available at the time Orr made her last call and none of them provided a "reasonable explanation" for why they didn't pick up, Bucks County Director of Emergency Communications Brent Wiggins told The Intelligencer of Doylestown today.

A few dispatchers said they thought someone else would pick up the call, Wiggins said.

Now put yourself in the position of the Bucks County commissioners for a second.

Would you:

A. Fire all 10 dispatchers for cause, hire new dispatchers and deal with the union consequences later.

B. Fire the male dispatcher for not listening to the call before handing it off, and discipline the other nine for failing to pick the call up immediately.

C. Place disciplinary letters in all of the dispatchers' files, make them review Orr's call with their superiors one-on-one and then listen to another call that was handled correctly.

Guess which one the Bucks commissioners chose?

If you picked A or B, I'm sorry but you have no future in politics.

Wiggins said the dispatchers are now prohibited from putting 911 calls on hold, and an in-house committee has been created to review and critique calls like Orr's.

Excuse me, but that's the type of discipline I expected at Comcast this week when they dropped my calls three times while trying to transfer me to another office.

It wasn't a life or death situation, though. This was. Whitewashing it won't make the public any safer.

Bucks County has 110 full-time dispatchers and some who work part time. Wiggins said typically 23 dispatchers are on duty at a given time.

Likes their counterparts in other counties, Bucks dispatchers typically work in 12-hour shifts, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. for a day shift and 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. for a night shift. The call center has some eight-hour "power shifts" of dispatchers who come in to work during the busier hours of the day.

Orr's call came in at 10:31 a.m. on Jan. 29, so it's doubtful shift length played a factor in the dismissive and undisciplined attitude of the dispatchers. For that, you have to look at their leadership.

By the way, public scrutiny of mishandled 911 calls may not be possible soon under the proposed Open Records law - Senate Bill 1 - which the Legislature sent to Gov. Ed Rendell on Tuesday to sign.

Rendell has not put his signature on it yet.

Clearly spelled out in the bill as an exemption to the would-be Right-to-Know-Law are: "Records or parts of records, except time response logs, pertaining to audio recordings, telephone or radio transmissions received by emergency dispatch personnel, including 911 recordings. This paragraph shall not apply to a 911 recording, or a transcript of a 911 recording, if the agency or a court determines that the public interest in disclosure outweighs the interest in nondisclosure."

In other words, the 911 directors will decide whether to make a recording public when dispatchers make mistakes and the media or public may have to sue to gain access.

Orr's recorded 911 call has been posted online by The Intelligencer. To hear it, click here.

Labels: 911, Brenda Orr, Bucks County, Open Records, Pennsylvania

Slotsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, no stranger to putting his foot in his mouth by word or deed, may very well be heading towards the biggest political crisis of his career.

This from a guy who once said Bill Clinton should resign the presidency amid the height of Slick Willie's impeachment for the Monica Lewinsky scandal while he was still running the Democratic National Committee.

Now that he's a lame-duck governor, entering the second year of his final term, Big Ed is so desperate for the national stage that he's willing to look the fool. But if he's not careful, the large hook may come out and bring down the curtain on his vaudevillian act.

During a newspaper tour last week to push his mildly-hated 2008-09 proposed budget, Fast-lipped Eddie let it slip with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he doesn't think Barack Obama can win the Democratic nomination for president in Pennsylvania because of his race.

Rendell, who supports Hillary Clinton (How's that for irony?), told the newspaper's editorial board, "You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate."

That's Rendell, tactful as ever. Now his remark is getting national play thanks to the Associated Press picking up on it.

Is he wrong? No. Is he impolitic? Absolutely. Our state may have more than its quotient of rednecks, but no one likes to be told to their faces that they're ignorant and intolerant.

Even the Clintons' long-time political adviser, James Carville, showed better taste when he once described Pennsylvania as "Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between."

Chuck Ardo, the governor's spokesman, tried to spin it Tuesday when pressed. "He was simply making an observation about the unfortunate nature of some parts of American society," Ardo told the AP. "He wasn't being critical, he wasn't making accusations, but just being realistic."

While the national media may or may not eat Rendell's lunch the next few days for his latest gaffe, the once-popular governor better start worrying about his approval ratings back home if he hopes to have any future pull in this state - even though he's still sitting on a campaign war chest of $2.25 million with which to play kingmaker by donating to other candidate's campaigns.

I may sound like the lone crank in the wilderness at times attacking Rendell for taking at least $115,000 in campaign contributions from now-indicted slot parlor owner Louis DeNaples, but the people of this state have a pretty good nose for bullshit.

Many now feel the governor has pulled a bait-and-switch with slot machine gambling, promising all homeowners would benefit from the state's increased revenue through lower school property taxes and a cap on what districts could spend. A tax reform promise Rendell now has no plans to deliver without hiking income or sales taxes for everyone - or dare I say it - turning the slots parlors into full-fledged casinos.

That's why during my day job as an online content editor I wasn't surprised this morning by a lettter-to-the-editor to the Bucks County Courier Times that calls for Rendell's impeachment.

William Gallagher, a resident of Bensalem - home of the Philadelphia Park Casino and Racetrack, wrote, "Over the last few years I have read letters calling for the removal of President Bush from office because the writers hate him. I would like to see Gov. Rendell impeached for not keeping his word about casino revenues.

"He has raised taxes for social programs that mainly benefit Philadelphia. And the people who live along Interstate 80 will pay for the Philadelphia transport unions' high demands and broken system.

"Finally, the biggest insult to injury is that Bensalem's school board is proposing a large tax increase even though there is a casino located in the township that rakes in millions of dollars a week."

That very slots parlor got approval to build its standalone casino Monday - and the biggest question wasn't whether to build it, but if its construction would be a union-only work site. It will.

Meanwhile, in Grantville near Harrisburg this morning the state's seventh slots parlor - Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course - opened its doors for the first time. The $260 million facility has 2,000 slot machines, and is designed to accommodate 5,000 machines.

And up in the Poconos, the quarters continue to fall into DeNaples' Mount Airy Casino Resort without its owner being there because he's barred from the place until he can beat back eight perjury charges for lying about his alleged mob ties to the state Gaming Control Board.

The federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have now also barred DeNaples from the bank he built, First National Community Bancorp Inc., the AP reported Tuesday.

Federal law allows banking regulators to ban officials from holding positions at banks when they are charged with breaking state or federal laws "where the charge may threaten to impair public confidence" in the bank, the OCC said. The suspension is in effect as long as the charges against DeNaples are pending or until terminated by the OCC.

DeNaples, the bank's chairman and largest shareholder with 10 percent of its shares, took what he thought was a temporary leave of absence from the institution on Feb. 6 - a full week after he was indicted by the Dauphin County grand jury.

The 67-year-old Dunmore billlionaire need not be too worried about finding other work. As far as I know, auto parts dealers and landfills don't have such high standards.

Come to think of it neither does his friend, Rendell.

By the way, Ardo once tried to spin that too, saying, he could see no connection between the governor and reputed Northeastern Pennsylvania mob boss Billy D'Elia through DeNaples. "Given the six degrees of separation like that, I can associate you with Mr. D'Elia," Ardo said.

Labels: Barack Obama, Billy D'Elia, Ed Rendell, Hillary Clinton, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots

Read this entire blog post and find out from just one example!

Here's some irony and a valuable lesson for you.

On Monday, the same day the state House "publicly debated" and approved an update to the state's weak 50-year-old Open Records law after ironing out its kinks behind closed doors for days, the Associated Press reported that a judge ruled the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Authority (PHEAA) must repay three media outlets $48,000 in legal fees for refusing reporters records that were supposed to be public under the old law.

Commonwealth Court Judge Doris Smith-Ribner ruled Friday that PHEAA acted willfully and with wanton disregard to the state's Open Records law - otherwise known as the Right-to-Know Law - in a battle over spending records, including those about PHEAA's lavish board retreats.

The judge found there was no legitimate reason for PHEAA to delay access to the records for 20 months, which the quasi-public student loan and grant agency claimed were "trade secrets."

Yawning yet? Wait. It gets better from here, much better. I promise.

Just who are these no-accounts, these trough hogs, these abusers of public trust on PHEAA'S board who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at posh resorts between 2000 and 2005 - money that could have helped worthy students pay for college?

Why they're some of the same state representatives who suddenly voted tonight - a full day earlier than expected - to send the Open Records bill back to the state Senate, where much of a 13-month delay previously occurred.

In case you didn't know, the PHEAA board is made up mostly of state lawmakers, including: Rep. William F. Adolph Jr. (R-Springfield), its chairman; Sen. Sean Logan (D-Monroeville), its vice chairman; Rep. Ronald I. Buxton (Harrisburg), Rep. Ronald I. Buxton (D-Harrisburg), Sen. Jake Corman (R-Bellfonte), former state Sen. J. Doyle Corman (Jake's father), Rep. Craig A. Dally (D-Nazareth), Sen. Andrew E. Dinniman (D-Exton), Sen. Jane M. Earll (R-Erie), Sen. Edwin B. Erickson (R-Newtown Square), Rep. Dan Frankel (D-Pittsburgh), Sen. Vincent J. Fumo (D-Philadelphia), Sen. Vincent J. Hughes (D-Philadelphia), Rep. Sandra J. Major (R-Montrose), Rep. Jennifer L. Mann (D-Allentown), former Rep. Roy Reinard (Holland), Rep. James R. Roebuck Jr. (D-Philadelphia), state Banking Secretary A. William Schenck III, Rep. Jess M. Stairs (R-Acme), Sen. Robert M. Tomlinson (R-Bensalem), and state Education Secretary and ex-officio Penn State trustee Gerald L. Zahorchak.

How bad do things have to get before Gov. Ed Rendell declares publicly, "It's a disaster. We have to totally re-evaluate PHEAA. I think we have to clean house and establish a new culture."

(I could say the same thing about the entire Legislature, the state Supreme Court and the governor himself, but I digress.) Rendell's threat to PHEAA came March 14, 2007.

In response, the PHEAA board issued a press release March 22, vowing it would change.

On April 20, the board issued another press release saying it had adopted a code of ethics that "formalizes longstanding policies and practices that have helped PHEAA's public service mission to always stay focused, first and foremost, on the students' best interests in all business dealings."

But on Aug. 24, Rendell again threatened to privatize the agency - or, at the very least, restrict how it spends money and consider replacing board members - after the board handed out bonuses as high as $180,857 to top PHEAA executives.

On Oct. 10, PHEAA CEO Dick Willey resigned in disgrace - two months earlier than he planned - and less than a week after preliminary findings of the first-ever state audit of PHEAA showed the board had given out $7.5 million in executive bonuses in just three years.

State Auditor General Jack Wagner also found that PHEAA had rented Hersheypark for a day in April, providing free rides and food for employees and their guests, at a total expense of $108,000. The deal to lease the amusement park was signed just one day after PHEAA's board issued its news release promising to tighten expenses.

Senator Logan, vice-chairman of PHEAA's board, claims the board members knew nothing about the staff outing and admits he demanded Willey resign immediately.

I couldn't find an explanation for why Logan simply didn't call an emergency meeting of the board and fire Willey's ass on the spot, because he didn't just walk away empty-handed.

Willey took his $370,000 annual pension with him. His predecessor, PHEAA founder Michael Hershock, retired from the authority at the end of 2002 with a $222,173 yearly state pension plus a $321,409 lump sum payment. Yet, he was also still drawing a $147,000 salary from PHEAA in 2006, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review found.

How did the board react to all this?

In October it started cutting back - on its own mission - by reducing the number of grants given to full-time students and for financial aid to adults taking job-training classes. It blamed a new federal law governing student lenders and unsettled financial markets for a projected $44.4 million reduction in spending on the aid programs in 2008-09, down from $105.8 million this year.

The board then issued a press release on Jan. 24 claiming PHEAA is now in "99.5% compliance with new, stricter spending policies."

That led Senator Fumo - who also happens to be under federal indictment for allegedly extorting $17 million from PECO Energy for a non-profit group in his district and then allegedly covering it up - to vehemently claim penny pinching by the PHEAA board was now hurting its efforts to gain funding for student loans and grants.

"I think the auditor general should be ashamed for trying to run a political campaign on the backs of the students of this commonwealth," Fumo charged.

Wagner, who is seeking re-election this year and is considered a potential candidate for governor in 2010, denied Fumo's allegation without laughing too loudly. His audit won't be complete until June.

This now bring us all the way back to that $48,000 the judge ruled PHEAA now owes to Pittsburgh TV station WTAE-TV, the Patriot-News of Harrisburg and the Associated Press.

Under the old law, PHEAA's board members cannot be held individually liable for their decision to deny the public records which sparked the 20-month legal fight and the resulting investigations. But the board was legally able to sue reporters seeking the information personally in hopes of blocking their requests.

Instead, the money to repay the media's legal costs will likely come out of PHEAA's operating budget - hurting students even more - or from errors and omissions insurance, if the board had the wisdom to take out such a policy.

I've long advocated that any change in the Open Records law must hold public officials personally liable for such denials so taxpayers don't get stuck with the bill or paying higher insurance premiums for governmental agencies.

But guess what the new Open Records bill - Senate Bill 1 - doesn't say?

S.B. 1 could be on Gov. Ed Rendell's desk by the end of the day tomorrow, even though Common Cause of Pennsylvania has withdrawn support for it, arguing the bill is too weak and has a built-in conflict of interest.

Pennsylvania Newspaper Association lobbyist Deb Musselman told the AP her organization was withholding judgment, particularly because of a last-minute addition that would deny access to records identifying the names, home addresses or dates of birth of children 17 or younger

Although legislative records would be fully covered under the Open Records bill for the first time, the reason House leaders could meet in secret over the last five days to discuss changing the bill is that the Legislature is still the only state agency exempt from the state's 34-year-old Open Meetings Act or Sunshine Law while meeting in caucus.

That's progress, Pennsylvania-style, folks.

Or as Patriot-News Executive Editor David Newhouse told the AP, "We can only hope that the new Right-to-Know Law will make it so the average citizen doesn't have to pay $50,000 and take a case to the Supreme Court to get information that they have a right to in the first place."

One final thought.

Given the revelations contained within the 13,470 pages of records the three media outlets had to sue PHEAA in appellate courts to obtain, all they've won so far is their money back, no real public thanks - and possibly a three-way share in a Pulitzer Prize.

Labels: Ed Rendell, Jane Earll, Open Records, Pennsylvania, PHEAA, Sean Logan

Anybody who reads my blog on a regular basis has heard me rant that indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples gave at least $115,000 in political contributions to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, and that his honor has given none of the money back.

Today I learned of another connection between the Dunmore billionaire and the state's top politician which has nothing to do with money. That's the man who, for years now ,has put words in each of their mouths and tried to shape their public image.

Attorney Kevin Feeley, DeNaples' hired spokesman, used to be an adviser and press secretary for Rendell during Big Ed's two terms as Philly mayor.

Yeah, I know, they shared the same flack, big deal.

But when you think about it, the connections between DeNaples and Rendell suddenly seem far more than just a rich donor and a rising political star, and a lot less coincidental and deniable.

Remember, it's DeNaples' denial of alleged relationships with two reputed mob bosses and two corrupt Philadelphia political fixers that now have him defending eight charges that he lied to both the state Gaming Control Board and a Dauphin County grand jury.

Let me be clear, I'm not alleging anything. It's Feeley's job to defend his boss to the press, no matter who that boss is. I'm just saying the ties seem a might cozy.

Given the shoddy public disclosure of campaign finances in this state, combined with the utter sham of lobbying "reform" which left the public no way of knowing who gave what to whom and why, some times these Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon games bear fruit when looking for an explanation on why things happen around here.

Rendell's not alone in taking money from DeNaples.

Between 2000 and 2004, the auto parts dealer, landfill owner and banker either personally or through one of his many companies contributed at least $679,375 and possibly more than $1 million to state lawmakers, judges and even its top prosecutor with seemingly little regard to their party affiliation.

As far as I know, only one state official, former state Rep. David "Chip" Brightbill, returned the money he received. And the public show Brightbill made of giving back that $20,000 didn't save him from being trounced at the polls.

As it turned out, Brightbill had to return the money or face criminal charges because DeNaples gave it to him after the state law legalizing slot machine gambling was enacted in 2004 and outlawed such contributions.

Oops.

By the way, Brightbill voted against the slots law.

Since then, there has been no legal limitation on what paid lobbyists can contribute to lawmakers for their votes or to block legislation. Perhaps that's why one proposal to cut off the lobbying spigot of gambling interests, Senate Bill 658, hasn't budged in a year.

While such regulatory efforts and attempts to rein in the out of control board remain at a standstill, the juggernaut that is legalized gambling in this state continues unabated.

On Tuesday, the state's newest slots parlor - their not casinos yet - will open as Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course in Grantville, despite the DeNaples debacle.

I assume the owners didn't want the hassle of changing its name when House Bill 2121, which would legalize table games, finally makes it out of committee. It's being pushed by House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese and my guess is it will see moonlight sometime between July 2 and July 4, because that's how both the slots law and the 2005 legislative pay raise were rammed into law and down the public's throat.

Public outrage forced a repeal of the pay raise less than a year later. Nothing short of a lynch mob might stop gambling in Slotsylvania.

I'd start watching for sales on rope and effigy dummies, though.

After Rendell's plan for property tax reform failed miserably last year, it looks like his new plan to use all $1 billion annually in state slots revenue to eliminate property taxes for poor seniors only - then jack up sales and income tax rates for the rest of us - will eventually become law.

Just who are all these "tourists" plunking quarters and silver dollars into noisy machines to the state's benefit?

They're your neighors. Most are the same folks who previously had to take at least a two-hour bus ride to Atlantic City, N.J., to gamble. (Yet, a bill to spend a paltry $3.5 million of the state's new largesse on curbing problem gambling has been pigeonholed in commmittee since October.)

Believe me when I say A.C. misses them - well, their money at least - and so do New Jersey lawmakers. The Assembly is now betting on a long shot that it can overturn federal law and add sports book betting to their casinos in order to lure some Pennsylvanians back.

Given the way Congress put the hammer down on Internet betting in 2006, despite the potential for huge federal tax revenue, you have to at least admire their courage.

Now if only the Feds would expand their wiretapping investigation of a single slots parlor owner to the politicians he - and who knows how many others - have given money to, I might feel a bit better. But probably not.

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots

There are plenty of bills pending in Pennsylvania's Legislature that would have reformed the state's slot machine gambling law before the indictment of slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples last week.

None of them have yet to see the light of day, much less been voted upon.

And if ever two guys needed to be stuck in an elevator together to find common ground for the public good, it's state senators Jeffrey Piccola and Sean Logan.

Logan (D-Allegheny) voted for the law legalizing slot machine gambling (Act 71) in 2004, but introduced a bill on March 22, 2007, to stop the state's fledgling gambling industry from lobbying lawmakers and to prevent lobbyists from serving as a pass-through for outlawed campaign contributions.

In effect, Senate Bill 658 would shut off the spigot of millions of dollars being spent annually with no public scrutiny to influence legislators into expanding legalized gambling (see H.B. 2121) and who knows what else.

However, Logan's bill has gone nowhere since it was introduced, remaining stuck in the Senate's Community, Economic and Recreational Development Committee.

Piccola (R-Dauphin), a former majority caucus administrator and whip, is a member of that committee and is no fan of the state's industry-written and hastily-passed slots law either - at least the way it exists currently.

Piccola voted against the slots law in 2004 and was one of 13 senators who fought in August 2006 for a package of 21 bills that would have: prohibited public officials and their families from holding any ownership interest in casino-related firms, created an entirely new Gaming Control Board with only five members appointed by the governor and confirmed by the senate, banned the board members from having any other salaried jobs, and rejected any slots license applicants who have felony criminal records (the 2004 slots law forgives convictions before 1991).

The senators urged the control board not to approve any more licenses - including one for DeNaples, a Dunmore billionaire who admitted a federal felony in 1978 - until their reform measures were heard. Some of them, including Piccola, even threatened to shut down the state government and all active casinos during budget wrangling in July 2007 to get their bills enacted.

They failed.

Piccola has since called DeNaples' indictment for lying to the control board about his allleged mob ties "a black eye on Pennsylvania" while standing on the floor of the Senate.

On Wednesday, the same day DeNaples was arraigned on the perjury charges, Piccola announced he will try again to reform the slots law.

Although his new bills have yet to be introduced, this time they appear far less sweeping. His proposed changes now include:

• opening all portions of the application process relating to character and integrity of applicants, principals, and key employees to public scrutiny.
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• transferring the Gaming Board's Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement to the Office of the Attorney General (a move the state police commander has said won't make any difference)
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• requiring all applicants to make Freedom of Information Act requests regarding their criminal file and providing all documents obtained to the Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement.

• S.B. 113, which would require the control board to take a public vote among all seven members - not just a supermajority consisting of the governor's appointee and four legislative appointees - on whether to take enforcement actions against a slots parlor license holder.
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• S.B. 423, which allows slots parlors to issue rewards cards to frequent gamblers, but also requiring each casino to issue monthly statements that list patrons' gaming winnings and losses.
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• S.B. 855, which requires all Gaming Control Board appointees to be confirmed by the Senate.
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• S.B. 600, which bars the Gaming Control Board from hiring relatives, requires all prospective board employees to submit their "complete criminal history" and to take a drug test, and subjects all control board employees "who, while on duty or off duty, engages in scandalous or disgraceful conduct which may bring the service of this Commonwealth into disrepute" to prompt disciplinary action and immediate suspension.
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• S.B. 1031 and S.B. 1032, which would prohibit the location of a slots parlor within 1,500 feet of a school, church or home.

• H.B. 482, which would cut the pay of Gaming Control Board members to $64,178, except the chairman who would get $66,810. Currently, board members are paid $145,000 and the chairman gets $150,000. (There is currently no law or bill pending on what the board can pay its employees.)
• 
  
  
• H.B. 909, which would require an audit if a slots parlor fails to generate 85 percent of its anticipated revenue in a year.
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• H.B. 1181, which would reduce the potential number of stand-alone casinos from five to three.
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• H.B. 1477, which would prohibit the location of a slots parlor within 1,500 feet of a school, church or home.
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• H.B. 1715 and H.B. 1975, which would require $1.5 million to $3.5 million be transferred annually from the Pennsylvania Gaming Economic Development and Tourism Fund into the Compulsive and Problem Gambling Treatment Fund.

None of those measures are nearly as controversial as H.B. 2121, which would expand the state's definition of legalized gambling to include table games - including roulette, baccarat, blackjack, craps, big six wheel, mini-baccarat, red dog, pai gow, poker, twenty-one, acey-ducey, chuck-a-luck, fan-tail, panguingui, chemin de fer, sic bo, and any variations or composites of such games - in effect turning the slots parlors into full-fledged casinos.

The table games bill was introduced July 14, 2007, by Majority Floor Leader H. William DeWeese and immediately garnered 19 Democratic supporters. They include state representatives: James Wansacz (D-Lackawanna County), Thomas Caltagirone (D-Berks County), Todd Eachus (D-Luzerne County), Florindo Fabrizio (D-Erie County), Dan Frankel (D-Allegheny County), Michael Gerber (D-Montgomery County), R. Ted Harhai (D-Fayette County), Patrick Harkins (D-Erie County), John Hornaman (D-Erie County), Deberah Kula (D-Fayette County), Frank Louis Oliver (D-Philadelphia County), John Pallone (D-Armstrong County), Eddie Pashinski (D-Luzerne County), Dante Santoni Jr. (D-Berks County), Frank Andrews Shimkus (D-Lackawanna County), John Siptroth (D-Monroe County), Majority Caucus Administrator Dan Surra (D-Clearfield County), Jesse White (D-Allegheny County), and Edward Wojnaroski Sr. (D-Cambria County).

DeWeese has accepted 4,401 campaign contributions from individuals and political action committes since Jan. 1, 2000. Again, it's unclear from the state's online database how many came from gambling interests because many of the employers and occupations have been left blank.

Like the rest of the bills pending before the Gaming Oversight committee, DeWeese's table games bill has been tabled since it was first introduced.

But given the continued flow of lobbying money and in-direct campaign contributions to lawmakers, which bill do you think will pass first?

I can tell you this, DeNaples, who has said he never placed a bet in his life, predicted in 2006 that table games would be a reality within two years.

Finally, one slots gambling-related bill was introduced this week by state Rep. RoseMarie Swanger (R-Lebanon) after Gov. Ed Rendell announced a state funding package designed to help lure a professional soccer team to the city of Chester .

H.B. 2225 would prohibit any money in the Gaming Economic Development and Tourism Fund from beng used for multipurpose recreational facilities or sports facilities.

Labels: Bill DeWeese, casino, Ed Rendell, Harold James, Jane Earll, Jeffrey Piccola, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, Sean Logan, slots

To the head of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, the justification for barring indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples from his own Poconos casino, escrowing his share of the profit and appointing a trustee it selected in secret to run the facility boils down to one thing: Public perception.

"The integrity of gaming and the public perception thereof, justifies a suspension of DeNaples' principal license in this instance," the board says in a 13-page opinion posted online Thursday and signed by its chairwoman, former Philly judge Mary DiGiacomo Colins. "The indictment, especially for falsifying testimony to this Board in his effort to obtain a slot machine license, undermines public confidence in the integrity of the board's regulation of gambling."

Actually, I think Slotsylvania's out-of-control board did a pretty good job of that all by itself.

Although there was plenty of anecdotal evidence in the public record - including reports from the now-defunct Pennsylvania Crime Commission - of alleged ties between DeNaples and reputed mob figures going back decades, not to mention that the Dunmore billionaire is a former federal felon, the board choose to give him a license anyway after its own privately hired investigators failed to turn up any proof.

DeNaples denies any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to the four perjury charges he now faces.

But as Bruce Edwards, president of the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, said in a letter to the editor of the Philadelphia Daily News this week, "In preparing to award the first-ever state licenses in a competitive process for an industry that has always suffered from organized-crime undertones, it is confounding as to why the PGCB would not take every imaginable step to ensure that its process was above reproach.

"If DeNaples truly was the best candidate, it would still seem to be the prudent course to delay the award to make sure all the facts were known," Edwards wrote. "Despite the failure to do just that, and the DeNaples indictment, the board's executive director, Anne Neeb, curiously defended the process, proudly boasting, 'The system is working perfectly.'"

The question to ask now is, for whom?

The control board has performed much of its functions behind closed doors - ignoring and possibly violating the state's Sunshine Law - leaving the public to wonder whether DeNaples' political contributions of at least $679,375 and possibly more than $1 million to the state's top officials between 2000 and 2004 played a major factor in the board's initial licensing decision.

And although the 2004 law legalizing slot machines and forming the control board barred further direct political contributions from gambling interests, the board has ruled that they can continue to lobby state legislators.

Given Slotsylvania's poor public disclosure of political contributions and weak lobbying reporting laws, the public now has almost no way of knowing who is trying to sway lawmakers into expanding gambling to include blackjack, roulette, craps and possibly riverboat gambling.

That isn't a problem of public perception, as Colins claims. It's a perversion of public trust.

TOMORROW: I'll look at some legislative measures that might fix both the broken gaming board and Slotsylvania's casino system - if they can ever come up for a vote.

Labels: casino, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots

It seems ironic that casino owner Louis DeNaples was arraigned Wednesday in a near-empty courtroom one tumultuous week after he was indicted on perjury charges for allegedly lying about his mob ties to a Dauphin County grand jury and the state Gaming Control Board.

But hey, that's what happens when the prosecutor lets you turn yourself in to face the charge at your earliest convenience, not the media's.

And so the public hearing went on, away from the TV cameras, photo-ops and spectacle that have dogged the 67-year-old Dunmore billionaire since last Wednesday.

The best an Associated Press reporter could do was talk to the Dauphin County court clerk's office afterward and learn that no filings resulted from the proceedings. District Attorney Ed Marsico, who has been accused by DeNaples' lawyers of grandstanding, didn't return phone calls and the office of Judge Todd Hoover would not release details about DeNaples' court appearance.

The AP did talk to Kevin Feeley, a spokesman for DeNaples, who said defense attorney Richard Sprague moved for a jury trial and asked for materials in the possession of prosecutors that may or may not have been presented to the grand jury, as well as transcripts of the testimony of more than a dozen witnesses - including indicted alleged mob boss Billy D'Elia. No preliminary hearing date has been set.

Other media accounts tonight have simply quoted or used the AP.

Reporters playing catch-up is nothing new here in Slotsylvania.

For instance, not a single newspaper connected the financial dots yesterday between Anthony Ceddia, the newly appointed trustee running DeNaples' casino now that he's barred from it, and state Gaming Control Board member Jeff Coy. (The linkage was Ceddia's $950 in political contributions to Coy when he was still a state representative.)

However, Dave Janoski, projects editor at the Citizens Voice in Wilkes-Barre and a former Times-Leader co-worker during my time there, did manage to find another Coy-Ceddia connection. Coy was on Shippensburg University's board while Ceddia was its president.

In fact, Coy was the chairman of the trustees at Shipp and served on the search committee that selected Ceddia, who became the longest serving president in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education with 23 years of service before he retired in 2005. Both also served together on the Orrstown Bank board of directors.

Mary DiGiacomo Colins, the Gaming Control Board's chairwoman, told Janoski that Ceddia has had relationships with several members of the control board.

Such time-consuming Six-Degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon games are often necessary to understand why politicians behave the way they do - like handing a $300 to $800 an hour job (Colins didn't even know how much) to a former university president without any kind of public hiring process.

Colins told The Morning Call of Allentown that the seven-member gaming board began considering trustees several weeks ago amid speculation of a DeNaples arrest and that Ceddia was among 10 to 12 individuals reviewed.

Who the rest were, how they were contacted, by whom and why Ceddia was finally selected is anyone's guess. That's nothing new, really. The control board has been mired since its 2004 inception on public allegations that most of its workings have been cloaked in politics and backroom deals with some of the biggest powerbrokers and deepest pockets in the state.

Why the hiring process could not be done in full public view is a question that should be posed not only to the control board, but every legislator in the state and Gov. Ed Rendell, whose gubernatorial campaign accepted $115,000 in contributions from DeNaples.

DeNaples' Mount Airy casino will pay Ceddia's hourly fee, whatever it is, plus liability insurance for him and must agree not to hold Ceddia responsible if his decisions as trustee harm the resort, Colins told the newspaper.

So Ceddia's taking the money and not the blame if he screws up. Wonderful.

One attorney for DeNaples, John Donnelly, publicly objected to Ceddia's appointment Tuesday - and not because of the secret way it was carried out.

"The Gaming Control Act does not permit the board to appoint trustees," said Donnelly, a lawyer in Atlantic City.

The act doesn't forbid them. In fact, it doesn't say anything.

Legislators never envisioned this happening when they approved the 146-page act in one-night, without public comment on the eve of the July 4, 2004 holiday.

However, it was easily predictable given their haste to ram-rod it into law by gutting a pre-approved and unrelated two paragraph bill about background checks for harness racing employees - then getting the state Supreme Court to say the method was perfectly legal (possibly in exchange for judicial raises).

I've always found sunlight to be a most effective disenfectant in such matters and will continue shining what little I can muster with what time I can devote.

To that end, let me acknowledge a mistake in yesterday's blog. I wrote in both a cutline and one sentence that Ceddia was president of Susquehanna University, which is an expensive private college. He headed Shippensburg University, a state-owned school. Although I did have it right later in the blog, I corrected both boneheaded (and sleep-deprived) mistakes this morning. Weirdly, nobody else even noticed it except Google, which picked up the erroneous cutline.

Here's one somebody did. The initial post of this blog said Donnelly was a control board member based solely on my misreading of a Tribune-Review article. I should have double-checked his name with the control board's Web site. I regret that mistake, as I do all of them.

Labels: Billy D'Elia, casino, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots

It's more important that Slotsylvania keeps the quarters flowing into Louis DeNaples' one-arm bandits in the Poconos than it is for the state Gaming Control Board and lawmakers to fix their rigged and broken slots parlor licensing system.

The control board put expediency and profit above the public good yet again Tuesday by naming a trustee to run DeNaples' $412 million slots parlor - who has political ties to both a board member and the PGCB's chief spokesman - without any public process for $300 to $800 an hour.

The board also continued its order barring DeNaples from his own casino and its profit as long as he remains under indictment for allegedly lying about his mob ties.

But board members didn't move to revoke DeNaples' $50 million license fee, didn't change their licensing process, didn't impose a mortatorium on granting new slots parlor licenses and didn't publicly disclose their connections (direct or indirect) to DeNaples and other slots parlor applicants.

But fittingly on Fat Tuesday the board did say, "Laissez les bons euros rouler!" Let the good dollars roll.

"We've not jeopardized the jobs of 900 Pennsylvanians, we're keeping the revenue flowing and we have protected ... the facility from any taint from contact from Mr. DeNaples," board Chairwoman Mary DiGiacomo Colins told reporters after the two-hour hearing in Harrisburg.

So glad the judge has her priorities straight. Colins was appointed to the board twice by Gov. Ed Rendell, who accepted at least $115,000 in campaign contributions from DeNaples.

She was to be the featured speaker at the fourth annual Pennsylvania Gaming Conference on Feb. 25 and 26 in Harrisburg, but withdrew after the CEO of the event's sponsor, Fred Gushin of Spectrum Gaming Group of New Jersey, openly criticized the board's licensing process way back in September.

At that time, Gushin told The Morning Call of Allentown that the control board's licensing of applicants was "an overtly political process instead of an exercise in regulatory control. It was a disaster in the making."

However, DeNaples' lawyer, Richard Sprague of Philadelphia, told reporters after Tuesday's hearing, "The bottom line here is the state police wants to take over the investigative work for the gaming board and they have used DeNaples as a scapegoat to try to say the gaming board's staff did not do a good job."

During the hearing, former Shippensberg University President Anthony F. Ceddia was named the new trustee of DeNaples' casino without any public debate or public application process - proving once more that the control board is out of control.

Board members first contacted Ceddia weeks ago, before DeNaples' indictment was announced, Colins told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He will be paid between $300 and $800 an hour.

Ceddia has contributed a total of $1,850 to several political campaigns since Jan. 1, 2000 - including $950 to former state Rep. Jeff Coy, according to state records.

Coy was named to his $145,000 a year post as one of seven gaming board members in 2004 by House Majority Leader H. William DeWeese.

Ceddia also gave $150 to the failed state House campaign of Doug Harbach in 2004. Harbach was named the control board's communications director in January 2007 replacing Nick Hays, a former deputy communications director for Rendell.

I couldn't find Harbach's salary online but in a Parade Magazine article in May entitled "Is gambling good for America?" Harbach admitted that he was initially against slots gambling when he ran for state representative.

"I went door-to-door, and people kept saying, 'Doug, what can you do about our taxes?' I got off my moral high horse. If people go into that casino and pull that lever, and some of the money goes to help taxpayers, then I'm for it," Harbach said then.

On Sunday, however, Harbach defended the control board's lavish spending on travel and state-leased cars in an article in Sunday's Evening Sun of Getttysburg.

During Tuesday's hearing, Coy sought assurances from Mount Airy's chief executive, Joseph D'Amato, that he would obey the agency's directives and run Mount Airy with integrity and free from the influence of DeNaples, the Associated Press reported.

"Yes sir, I pledge that. I do that not only for myself, but all my employees that I have and my management team," D'Amato responded. "We will comply with not only the letter, but the spirit of the directives given to us."

None of this is meant in offense to Ceddia, a bank director, who seems trustworthy - at least according to his resume, which is posted on the Morning Call's Web site, and a posting about him on the Shippensburg University's educational foundation site.

It will now be his job to serve as an intermediary between the board and the casino's executives in order to keep the dollars flowing into state coffers.

"Since it opened on Oct. 22, 2007, Mount Airy has generated nearly $40 million in revenue and $21.7 million in tax revenue to the Commonwealth from slot machine play," a board press release says.

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots

Hold the whitewash. Pennsylvania must have immediate and legitimate campaign finance reform, as well as a strict ban on all gambling lobbying and a moratorium on new slots parlor licenses. Without them, this painful lesson on how not to run a government will be for naught.

Pennsylvania House Republicans on Monday called on Harold James, the Democratic chairman of the House Gaming Oversight Committee, to improve the state's casino licensing process by letting debate on a GOP-backed bill ensue.

Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell later agreed to back the bill too, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The measure, House Bill 1450, would put the state Attorney General's office in charge of all integrity background investigations of casino license applicants. It won't make any difference other than making its backers look responsive momentarily, but more on that in a bit.

A press conference (a video of which is available on Windows Media) about the 4-month-old bill was held in Harrisburg Monday morning - less than a week after slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples was indicted for perjury after allegedly lying about his ties to organized crime figures to both a grand jury and state gaming regulators.

"This is a black eye on Pennsylvania," state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola (R-Dauphin), later said of the perjury charges from the floor of the Senate. "If we do not correct this statute, we are hanging out a sign telling organized crime, 'Welcome, open for business - Pennsylvania.'"

The Republican legislators' theory is that the attorney general - the top law enforcement agent in the state - would be able to provide an "advisory opinion" to the Gaming Control Board on whether to grant a license to a slots parlor applicant.

There's two serious flaws with that theory, though.

First, State Police Commissioner Col. Jeffrey Miller issued a press release in the afternoon that says the bill "would not prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future."

According to Miller, even if his troopers had conducted the background investigation of DeNaples - not private investigators hired by the gaming board - and then reported to the attorney general, "a law enforcement agency cannot share information about an ongoing criminal investigation with any non-criminal justice agency" like the gaming board.

Believe it or not, as far as Miller's concerned, "The bottom line is that every agency involved in this process acted appropriately and professionally under the circumstances."

The second flaw is more crucial and really laid the foundation for this entire fiasco.

In Pennsylvania, the attorney general is an elected official. The current top cop, Republican Tom Corbett, accepted at least $35,000 from DeNaples in campaign contributions when he ran.

And he wasn't alone.

Between 2000 and 2004, DeNaples donated at least $679,375 and possibly more than $1 million to the campaigns of politicians, lawmakers and judges across the state - including at least $115,000 to Rendell and at least $41,200 to the House Republican Campaign Committee.

How much exactly the Dunmore auto parts dealer, banker and former federal felon contributed really isn't known because of the shoddy method in which campaign finance reports are made public in this state. I did, however, confirm the $679,375 with state records along with the minimum amounts to Corbett, Rendell, and the House GOP ratfuckers.

None of those elected officials have publicly acknowledged giving a penny of DeNaples' campaign money back or to charity since his indictment.

Yet, there were state Reps. Doug Reichley (R-Berks/Lehigh) and Mike Vereb (R-Montgomery), the authors of H.B. 1450, standing shoulder to shoulder with House Republican Leader Sam Smith in the capitol Monday morning in front of TV cameras and reporters, claiming their solution would solve this stacked deck.

As deluded as it sounds, Reichley said, "This gaming reform bill leaves no question as to the integrity of the gaming investigations. It is a commonsense fix."

However, House Appropriations Chairman Mario Civera (R-Delaware) nailed it when he said, "We are looking to protect the public's interest. If the public doesn't believe in the process, gaming will always have problems."

Therein lies the rub, folks.

If these lawmakers are so concerned with public perception - and they weren't when they legalized slots gambling without public debate in a single night before adjourning for a holiday in 2004, then adding a new coat of whitewash for Slotsylvania and calling it reform should now wait.

This is a question of influence peddling and credibility, pure and simple.

Although the slots law finally banned direct political contributions from gambling interests, paid lobbying and indirect gifts are still perfectly legal.

Some in Harrisburg have been pushing for legalizing card games, craps, roulette and even riverboat gambling, lobbying state senators at a total cost of nearly $4.6 million in 2006 - the last year for which such figures are currently available online. (The reason why total figures for both the House and the Senate in 2007 are not online will be another rant for another day.)

But which lawmakers benefited from all that money the public will never know thanks to a "lobbying reform law" former House speaker John Perzel ram-rodded into existence just two years ago before he was deposed last year.

Are we going to allow the same jerks who sold their offices and created this mess - some even before they were elected - another chance to pay back more of their invisible friends and contributors?

Pennsylvania must have immediate and legitimate campaign finance reform, as well as a strict ban on all gambling lobbying and a moratorium on new slots parlor licenses. Without them, this painful lesson on how not to run a government will be for naught.

I demand a system that clearly spells out the conflicts of interests that existed even before the then-Republican controlled House, with the assistance of a Democratic governor and possibly the state Supreme Court, was able to ram slots gambling down our throats to benefit a billionaire campaign contributor with alleged mob ties - and who knows how many others.

By the way, slots gambling was approved under the public ruse of "property tax reform," then "property tax relief," and now most Pennsylvanians won't even get that. All $1 billion of the state's annual share of slots money is to be earmarked for eliminating property taxes for "low-income" seniors only - and some in the Legislature now want to RAISE sales or income taxes to give other property owners a break.

Where's the public benefit then, especially in a state which had a huge budget surplus last year yet cannot afford to fix its highways without the governor working behind closed doors to "lease" them to a private company?

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

Former Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board chief Tad Decker blames the state police for not sharing what they knew before the board licensed now-indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples.

"If it's true that Mr. DeNaples lied, [the state police] did a horrible disservice to the citizens of this commonwealth," Decker told the Philadelphia Inquirer Friday.

Bruce Edwards, a state police sergeant who heads the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, pointed a finger back at the control board Thursday, repeating hiss public charge that the staties should have done the background investigation on DeNaples, not privately hired investigators with no real power.

He and others have also said the state police were not about to jeopardize their "ongoing investigation" of DeNaples' alleged mob ties by releasing information prematurely.

The Republicans in the state House are now blaming the Democrats for this debacle, even though the GOP was in power and had accepted contributions from DeNaples when the state's weak, lobbyist-written slots law was rammed through in the dead of night on July 2, 2004, with the help of Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell.

Rendell has remained uncharacteristically quiet about the indictment of DeNaples - one of the governor's biggest political contributors - on charges that the billionaire Dunmore businessman lied to a Dauphin County grand jury about his connections to two Northeast Pennsylvania mob bosses and two friends of former Philadelphia Mayor John Street who were charged with corruption.

Two of the four men are dead, one is in prison and the other is under indictment.

The governor did, however, blast Philly's City Council on Wednesday - the same day DeNaples' indictment was unveiled - for showing "no guts" by failing to approve two proposed riverfront casinos.

On Saturday, Councilman Frank DiCicco returned fire, telling the Philadelphia Daily News, "If he (Rendell) wants to pander to the folks who have been contributing to him, and these are very wealthy people, that's his business. I'm not giving in and I hope my colleagues will continue to support me."

DeNaples, who has been barred from his own casino by the control board until at least a hearing on Tuesday, maintained his innocence in letters to the editor sent Friday to both the Times-Tribune of Scranton and The Morning Call of Allentown. In each, he said, " I reiterate that I am innocent, and I intend to prove my innocence in court."

He also apologized profusely for telling the control board's lawyers he wouldn't recognize Shamsud-din Ali and the late Ron White because "To me, all black people look alike." (A bug authorities planted in Ali's office as part of a City Hall corruption case proved to the grand jury the two had dealings.)

"I sincerely regret the pain I have caused anyone with my statement," says the letter from the 67-year-old auto parts dealer, landill owner and banker. "People who know me know that I believe deeply in the cause of racial diversity and minority participation on the job."

Yes, folks, we've begun that most painful of all dances - the Slotsylvania shuffle. Crank up the Polka music for this statewide blame game has only just begun.

Not that this fiasco wasn't easily predictable

On Oct. 17, 2005, Edwards, president of the troopers association, testified before the State Senate Law and Justice Committee that, "Leaving background checks to outside vendors simply creates another layer of bureaucracy, which can create weaknesses in the system, not to mention waste tax dollars. The State Police are the primary law enforcement agency in Pennsylvania. This duty should clearly be the department's responsibility.

"... Nothing should take a back seat to law enforcement," he added. "The gaming board and administration must show Pennsylvania is serious about preventing organized crime from infiltrating our gaming industry. Make no mistake, criminals will try everything they can to do just that. Outsourcing background checks will do nothing but weaken the oversight of an industry that has traditionally attracted organized crime and rampant corruption."

In 2006, DeNaples' direct competitor for one of the two free-standing slots parlor licenses available in the state was Greg Matzel, who applied for a license for Pocono Manor Resort & Casino in Monroe County and said that unlike DeNaples, neither he nor any other principal in the Pocono Manor project donated money to state lawmakers.

"It would be an absolute tragedy if politics trumped economic benefit and better judgment," Matzel told the Associated Press back then. "Clearly, we're concerned about any conflicts that may exist. We come with no strings attached. Clearly, there will be no public perception that there was any favoritism given to us if we are awarded the license."

This being Pennsylvania, naturally Pocono Manor didn't win.

Its investors sent a letter to the gaming board Friday calling its decision "a gross miscarriage of justice" and demanding a license for their casino.

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots

You have to hand it to lame-duck Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. He sure knows how to play both sides.

First, he took at least $115,000 from Louis DeNaples in campaign contributions, even though the billionaire Dunmore businessman was clearly seeking to legalize slots gambling in the state and wanted a license.

Now, he's applauding the Gaming Control Board's decision to suspend DeNaples' license two days after the slots parlor owner was indicted on perjury charges for allegedly lying about his mob ties.

Will Fast Eddie give back the cash any time soon? I think not. As one reporter covering this story told me today, DeNaples is still innocent until proven guilty - no matter what a Dauphin County grand jury believes.

However, Rendell is taking notice of the grand jury's recommendations for improving gambling oversight, Chuck Ardo, the governor's spokesman, told The Times-Tribune of Scranton.

Among their very obvious suggestions:

• DeNaples should forfeit his $50 million license fee and the Gaming Control Board should immediately suspend his gambling license and then question him about his ties to the four criminal figures named in the presentment. (A public hearing by the board on whether to continue the suspension is scheduled for Tuesday morning, even though at least board member Ray Angeli has some ties to DeNaples, according to the Times-Leader of Wilkes-Barre)
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• The General Assembly should require all portions of the slots casino application process relating to the character and integrity of license applicants be open to the public. (Unlike New Jersey's casino application process, Pennsylvania's board held two closed door hearings with DeNaples, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.)
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• The General Assembly should consider placing the control board's Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement under the jurisdiction of the state attorney general. (Oops, State Attorney General Tom Corbett accepted at least $35,000 in campaign contributions from DeNaples.)

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

Parochial Pennsylvania news media focused on the indictment of slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples but failed to follow his money trail to the state's top leaders.

Ask yourself this: Why is it national news when U.S. Sen. Barack Obama gives away the $150,000 his presidential campaign received from a now-indicted Chicago businessman, but it's not even statewide news that Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell accepted at least $115,000 from a now-indicted Dunmore businessman with alleged mob ties who was given a slots parlor license?

And Rendell isn't even giving the money away.

Neither is state Attorney General Tom Corbett, who accepted at least $35,000 toward his election campaign in 2004 from Louis DeNaples, a 67-year-old billionaire auto parts dealer, landfill owner and banker who also happens to be a former federal felon.

Ditto for many of the state's top lawmakers, judges and the Republican and Democratic parties.

In fact, few reporters have even begun to question any of Pennsylvania's leaders about the more than $1 million DeNaples contributed to their campaign war chests between 2000 and 2004 before he finallly received one of the state's two prized standalone slots parlors licenses.

Asked why he gave all that money, DeNaples once said, "It's more like building a customer base and spreading goodwill. It's business."

No newspaper missed a chance, though, this morning to detail the gaps in DeNaples' grand jury testimony.

He denied being friendly with indicted Northeast Pennsylvania mob boss Billy D'Elia - statements a Dauphin County grand jury decided were perjury after they were contradicted during seven months of testimony from other witnesses.

My old paper, The Times-Leader of Wilkes-Barre, went so far as to post the 23-page indictment in pdf format on its Web site. (I've made a copy of it, just in case it lapses off their servers.) So did its regional rival, The Times-Tribune of Scranton.

But instead of grilling the governor or the state's top prosecutor, those newspapers as well as the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News, The Morning Call of Allentown and even the Harrisburg Patriot-News focused instead on the $50,000 DeNaples funneled to former Philly Mayor John Street's reelection campaign through the late city fixer Ron White, who was indicted on corruption charges but never convicted before he died.

The Pocono Record seemed more concerned that DeNaples' $412 million slots parlor, on the site of the former Mount Airy Lodge, might be forced to close.

It didn't.

In fact, its parking lot was full Thursday morning and there was more action reportedly on the casino floor than there ever was in the heart-shaped hot tubs of the defunct lovers' resort it replaced.

The only real changes are that the casino's executives now report directly to the state Gaming Control Board - the same panel that let this happen in the first place - and that DeNaples is not allowed to even walk through the door.

That's OK. DeNaples once claimed he has never gambled, not even on a lottery ticket.

Like many newspapers today, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review merely covered his indictment. However, it also included a quote from state Sen. John Eichelberger, an Altoona Republican, who called it "another black mark for Pennsylvania" without explaining why.

Its rival, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, at least got Control Board Executive Director Anne Neeb to say that all of the profit DeNaples would have received as the parlor's owner will now be placed in an escrow account, and either returned to him if he is cleared or kept by the state if he is convicted.

Are all these reporters lazy? Don't they know how to connect the dots? Or do they just lack the guts to ask Rendell or Corbett to their faces if they'll give the money back now?

I worked with two of the reporters for years that wrote stories cited here. I can tell you they're some of the hardest working, ballsy and professional folks I've ever had the pleasure of calling co-workers and friends.

But in an era of constant cuts in newsroom budgets, crushing competition, declining circulation and 24-hour news cycles, there's simply no time for a veteran reporter to stand back for a moment and look at the overall - much less follow a time-consuming money trail through the state's clunky online database of campaign contributions.

That's one of the main reasons I got out of the game nine years ago and became an online editor.

I do, however, have to give it up for Associated Press reporter - and former Times-Leader cubiclemate - Mike Rubinkam, who is way ahead of the pack on this story.

Rube broke the news today that two months before his indictment Wednesday and just a month after the slots parlor opened, DeNaples tried to shift ownership of the casino to his children and grandchildren.

"The timing is, honestly, coincidental," DeNaples' spokesman Kevin Feeley said. "It was about succession and the fact that he is 67-years-old. Good planning requires that you think about these things."

One thing you can say about DeNaples, he's certainly a guy who knows how to plan ahead.

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, slots, Tom Corbett

First, Pennsylvania lame duck Gov. Ed Rendell - five years into his reign and a full year into his second term - decides Friday to issues his first annual review of his administration, by his administration.

That's followed hours later by an Associated Press article that says reform-minded freshmen lawmakers have accomplished little reform during their first year in office.

Somebody pinch me. I think I'm still having the same nightmare over and over.

"Pennsylvania taxpayers have a right to know how the commonwealth spends their hard-earned tax dollars," Governor Rendell said in a press release. "This report provides those crucial answers. It shows we are making progress, but we have more work to do."

A lot more than just issuing pure propaganda, Ed. I sent you a list in April 2006 and so far you haven't addressed any item on it.

Meanwhile, the 170-page "Gov.'s Report on State Performance," which is available online as a PDF file, emphasizes the administration's achievements during Rendell's five years as governor. (What, you expected an honest assessment of shortcomings from Fast Eddie?)

It provides basic information about the major departments of state government and programs they administer, as well as an assortment of charts, graphs and tables to illustrate trends and tax dollars spent.

Reporters at a press conference Friday took exception to the report's contention that the number of jobs "created, retained or pledged" as a result of state economic development programs grew from about 187,000 in 2004-05 to more than 282,000 in 2006-07.

However, an Associated Press story in October that focused on Rendell's first two years in office showed more than half of 56 businesses that accepted $44 million in taxpayer money failed to hire as many workers as they promised in 2003-04.

By the way, printing 1,000 to 1,500 copies of the governor's new report is expected to cost taxpayers an additional $20,000, Michael Masch, the governor's top budget adviser, said he could not calculate the total cost of producing the report because that work was done largely by state employees in each of the 25 state departments and agencies it covers, and those costs were not itemized.

Wonderful. That alone says plenty about the Rendell administration. Drop everything, the big (and I stress big) boss needs good PR.

Another group in need of better PR - if they haven't hired a new set of flacks secretly already - is the Legislature, especially the politicians voters sent down to Harrisburg to reform it.

The freshman class of 2007 had high hopes, AP reporter Mark Scolforo writes. But one year into their first session, their record is at most incomplete, with movement on many key bills and reform issues stalled in what looks an awful lot like partisan gridlock.

"It's sort of like a huge snowstorm," sophomore state Sen. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon, told the news service. "You get 50 inches dumped on your driveway and all you have is a shovel and you think, 'How am I going to clean this up?' You do it one shovelful at a time."

Here's a hint, Mike.

If what you're shoveling is brown and smelly, that's not snow. It's bullshit.

Labels: Ed Rendell, Legislature, Pennsylvania, reform

Become one of them?

Former Pennsylvania lieutenant governor candidate and anti-legislative pay raise activist Gene Stilp has found another way to get under the skin of state lawmakers.

He wants to join them.

Stilp told the Harrisburg Patriot-News he's collecting signatures with an eye towards the Democratic nomination for the 104th state House district seat. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2006 and twice argued cases before the state Supreme Court, arguing each time that the Legislature was out of control.

Running for the state House "is another platform to produce reform," Stilp told the newspaper.

Lord knows, our legislators can't seem to do it on their own.

Case in point, the long-delayed "reform" of the state's Open Records Law.

Public access to county coroner's autopsy reports and arbitration documents for public school teachers involved in labor disputes are among the issues that still need to be resolved, said Deborah Musselman, a lobbyist for the Pennsylvania Newspapers Association.

Meanwhile, I'm willing to bet the update to the bill won't do anything to change the opaque nature of how our legislators spend our tax money.

As I wrote in 2006, Bob Bauder of the Beaver County Times wanted to know what his area lawmakers are spending and had to make at least two requests in writing, wait a few weeks in between for approval, shell out 50 cents per page for copying and be willing to sit in a closet for hours on end.

Labels: Gene Stilp, Legislature, Pennsylvania