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

"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

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

... 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

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

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.
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• 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.
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• 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.
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• 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.
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• 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

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.
• 
  
  
• 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."
• 
  
  
• 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