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

Pssst. Hey Slotsylvania, I'm back. No, that isn't the big news. Just thought I'd give myself a plug for a second.

The biggest news story ignored by the state media over the July 4th holiday weekend was the reported indictments of state House Majority Leader H. William "Bill" DeWeese and Mike Veon, a former House Minority Whip and Democratic rat-fucker turned casino and tobacco lobbyist after voters threw him out of office.

So far, blogger and writer Bill Keisling is the only one to have part of the story, noting, "Prosecutors are expected to make public the charges against Majority Leader DeWeese and others within the next week or so."

Guess, they didn't want to interfere with all those good news cycles over the holiday weekend about Pennsylvania leaders actually passing a budget on time for a change. Or step on the tear-stained shoes of departing state Sen. Vince Fumo, who left the public stage last week amid health concerns and a federal indictment of his own to fight.

Of course, that could just be my "the incompetent media is a conspiracy" theory. Nobody else has printed a glimmer about the potential grand jury indictments since last month, according to a Google news search.

But I'm willing to give Keisling the benefit of the doubt on this - and apologize later if need be. The novelist and owner of yardbird.com previously broke the news that Gov. Ed Rendell had secretly hired his former law firm, Ballard Spahr, to handle the closed-door bidding and now-dead long-term leasing of the Turnpike.

According to Keisling, a grand jury investigation into legislative bonuses has blossomed into a wide-ranging inquiry throughout state government.

DeWeese and Veon, the only two nitwits to vote against repealing the 2005 legislative pay raise (before DeWeese caved and left Veon hanging), are probably being named because of allegations they paid taxpayer-funded bonuses to their legislative staffers for performing political work.

If true, the two main architects behind slot machine gambling in Pennsylvania - and the chief forces pushing for full casino gambling - are now both politically tainted. And suddenly, the governor finds himself and his staff answering a lot of tough questions about corruption.

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 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

I should be ecstatic. For years now, I've been calling for someone - preferably the Feds - to do this very same thing. However, I'll stop just short of singing Handel's "Hallelujah!" chorus.

That's because state Attorney General Tom Corbett, the guy who may be driving this freewheeling grand jury with an eye on the governor's chair (You reading me Pat Meehan?), has already painted himself with the same corrupt brush with which Rendell has become a master.

Rendell, a Democrat, and Corbett, a Republican, both accepted large political contributions from Dunmore billionaire and former federal felon Louis DeNaples in the run-up to the awarding of his slots license.

A Dauphin County grand jury indicted DeNaples last year for lying to the state Gaming Control Board about his alleged ties to organized crime figures. The local prosecutor was given Corbett's blessing, even though the state's chief law enforcement officer has a seven-attorney corruption taskforce in part because of legalized slots gambling.

State campaign finance records are shoddy even though they're computerized public records. But my research found Gov. Ed Rendell received at least $115,000 from DeNaples in campaign donations between 2000 and 2004, and Corbett, the state's top prosecutor, accepted at least $35,000.

Spokesmen for both officials have said they won't give the money back unless DeNaples is convicted. Other recipients of DeNaples' contributions included top state lawmakers, party groups and judges.

Labels: Bill DeWeese, casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Mike Veon, 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

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

Labels: John Morganelli, Louis DeNaples, 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

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.
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• 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.
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• 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

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.
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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

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

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

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)
• 
  
  
• 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.)
• 
  
  
• 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

The real question to be asked now is whether any of the state's top officials, prosecutors, judges and political parties will give back the more than $1 million contributed by slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples, who was indicted today for lying about his mob ties?

Louis DeNaples, the owner of one of only two free standing slots parlors in Pennsylvania, was indicted today by a Dauphin County grand jury for allegedly lying to the state Gaming Control Board about his mob ties during a prelicensing background check.

The board then suspended DeNaples' license with an emergency order that allows the casino to stay open but bars him from entering the property, exerting control over the casino or profiting from it.

It makes you wonder how thorough the board's investigation really was, considering DeNaples alleged ties to indicted Northeast Pennsylvania mob boss Billy D'Elia and the late Russell Bufalino date back decades and were included in reports issued by the now-defunct Pennsylvania Crime Commission.

But the board eventually made its licensing decisions without knowing what state police knew about DeNaples and other applicants because the board hired private investigators to do its background checks, pissing off the staties. A lawsuit from the PSP against the board is still pending.

The real question to be asked now is whether any of the state's top officials, prosecutors and judges - not to mention political parties - will give back any of the more than $1 million DeNaples gave them as campaign contributions between 2000 and 2004 before he applied for the casino license?

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Gov. Ed Rendell (at least $115,000), Attorney General Tom Corbett (at least $35,000), multiple judges (at least $15,500), the Pennsylvania Democratic Party (at least $55,000) and the House Republican Campaign Committe (at least $41,200) to return the money.

Two years ago, then-state Sen. David Brightbill did return $20,000 DeNaples gave him in 2004 and 2005, but only because the contributions were illegal.

The cash was donated months after the state slots law went into effect and prohibited potential casino applicants from making campaign contributions. Not that the Gaming Control Board cares, since it ruled anyone connected with slot parlors can still hand money to lobbyists, who can then turn around and give it to elected officials on their client's behalf.

Kevin Feeley, a spokesman for DeNaples, called the public release of the indictment "outrageous" because his boss wasn't notified first. He claimed it was done solely to garner headlines and added that "One thing is clear now: Mr. DeNaples is glad that we are finally moving from the rumor mill to the courtroom. Anybody who knows Louis DeNaples knows that he tells the truth. And he's eager to have the chance to show he did exactly that before the gaming board."

But District Attorney Ed Marsico said, "I'm confident that the questions were clear, and that there could be no misunderstanding as to whether or not Mr. DeNaples understood those and he answered falsely."

He said he expects DeNaples to turn himself in within a few days.

DeNaples himself told The Times-Tribune of Scranton in 2006, "Look, I'm 65 years old. I don't need the money. Do you think for one minute that I would stick my neck out and put my personal name on an application, send it to the gaming commission, knowing the kind of questions they'll ask, knowing the background checks. ... If I thought I had a problem, do you think that I would do that? Why would I be that dumb?"

The same grand jury that indicted DeNaples today previously charged the Rev. Joseph F. Sica, a Roman Catholic priest and friend of DeNaples, with perjury. Prosecutors said Sica lied to the grand jury about his relationship with Bufalino, an organized crime boss who served lengthy prison terms in the 1970s and '80s and died in the 1990s.

Corbett, the state's top prosecutor, had authority to investigate DeNaples, but chose to permit Marsico to pursue the matter saying that the county prosecutor had already begun delving into other gambling-related matters. He denied that his own conflict of interest in having taken money from DeNaples was the reason.

By the way, former state Senate President Pro Tempore Bob Jubelirer, who acccepted $20,000 from DeNaples, praised Corbett for starting an anti-corruption task force in 2006, saying, "Gambling has never proved to be a corruption-free enterprise, no matter which state tries it, and no matter how strong the regulatory oversight is designed to be. So there is no question there is trouble ahead for Pennsylvania. The only questions seem to be when, where, and how much trouble hits."

Guess Bob was right about that. He wasn't about the 2005 pay raise legislators gave themselves and got chucked out of office by voters.

The money aside, DeNaples' indictment should throw open the whole way the slots parlor law was rammed down our throats in the first place - by inserting a 146-page bill into a two-paragraph one late at night on the eve of a July 4th weekend.

And if none of that convinces you the game is rigged in Slotsylvania, this should. The slots law was sold to Pennsylvanians - after the fact - by legislative leaders and Rendell as a way to lower property taxes for everyone.

But four years later, the state House overwhelmingly passed a bill Tuesday that says all of the state's share of slots revenue - an estimated $1 billion annually - should be used to lower property taxes for lower income seniors only.

The rest of us may eventuallly have to pay higher income or sales taxes if younger homeowners are to get any break at all.

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

The richest man in Northeastern Pennsylvania predicts the state will have seven full casinos, including table games, within two years.

An interesting series of stories ran today in the Scranton Times-Tribune detailing the life and financial times of Dunmore businessman and slots hopeful Louis DeNaples.

One story, "From wrecks to riches," traces his climb from being the being the ninth child of an impoverished Scranton PennDOT worker to the possibly Northeastern Pennsylvania's richest person thanks to salvaging auto parts from junked cars.

DeNaples, 65, now reportedly has a net worth of $1.5 billion, owns, operates or has an interest in more than 200 companies, directly employs about 600 people, and is the largest landowner in Lackawanna County and one of the largest in the region.

He is also one of two applicants for a slots machine license in the Poconos. He purchased the former Mount Airy Lodge and plans to spend about $360 million developing it into a casino.

This from a guy who claims never to have gambled, not even on a lottery ticket.

But he knows an opportunity when he sees one, and DeNaples is predicting that "within two years" the state will be licensing table games in addition to slot machines.

It will issue seven casino licenses - five standalones and two for resorts," DeNaples told the newspaper. He sees an industry easily netting $1 billion in gross revenues and does not anticipate that any other licenses will be issued.

And he's pulling out all stops to come out on top.

Asked why he has reportedly given more than $1 million to the state's top politicians between 2000 and 2005, DeNaples said, "It's more like building a customer base and spreading goodwill. It's business."

In "DeNaples: mob links simply don't add up," the newspaper details his federal felony record and alleged ties to organized crime.

DeNaples pleaded no contest to felony fraud in 1978 after a federal jury could not reach a verdict on charges he tried to defraud the government out of $525,000 in the wake of Tropical Storm Agnes. He received a suspended sentence.

In 1990, the now-defunct Pennsylvania Crime Commission reported James Osticco, underboss of the Buffalino crime family, bribed the husband of a juror to hold out for acquittal in the trial.

DeNaples blames it all on bad recordkeeping by Lackawanna County in the months after the storm left the region inundated and said, "Aside from the flood thing, you won't find so much as a parking ticket."

As for those who believe he has unproven ties to the mob, DeNaples said, "What am I going to do? Am I going to argue with them? Fight with them? Sue them? There's nothing I can do about them. I just give it to God and let him deal with them. That's all I can do.

"Look, I'm 65 years old. I don't need the money. Do you think for one minute that I would stick my neck out and put my personal name on an application, send it to the gaming commission, knowing the kind of questions they'll ask, knowing the background checks. ... If I thought I had a problem, do you think that I would do that?

"Why would I be that dumb?"

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

Your Search Returned 6 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
Louis DeNaples , PA  18512	9/21/2005	$1,000.00
Recipient:  Committee to Elect Mangino Judge
Louis Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	4/12/2005	$2,500.00
Recipient:  House Republican Campaign Committee 2006, Inc.
LOUIS DENAPLES STURGES-OLPHANY, PA  18447	9/26/2005	$10,000.00
Recipient:  REP STATE COM OF PA
LOUIS DENAPLES STURGES-OLPHANY, PA  18447	11/14/2005	$10,000.00
Recipient:  REP STATE COM OF PA
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	3/14/2005	$10,000.00
Recipient:  SENATE REP CAMPAIGN COM
LOUIS J. DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	4/14/2005	$2,500.00
Recipient:  PENETAR, DANIEL FOR JUDGE COM

Your Search Returned 8 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
DeNaples, Louis Moscow, PA  18444	3/24/2004	$50,000.00
Recipient:  PA Democratic Party
LEWIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	10/27/2004	$10,000.00
Recipient:  PHILA DEM CAMPAIGN COM OF
Louis DeNaples Dunmore, PA  18512	10/1/2004	$10,000.00
Recipient:  Friends of Senator Jubelirer Committee
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	6/8/2004	$2,700.00
Recipient:  HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE 2004, INC.
Louis Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	10/21/2004	$2,500.00
Recipient:  House Republican Campaign Committee 2004, Inc.
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	8/2/2004	$525.00
Recipient:  MELLOW, BOB FRIENDS OF
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	9/30/2004	$5,000.00
Recipient:  SENATE REP CAMPAIGN COM
MR LOUIS DENAPLES MOSCOW, PA  184449278	7/6/2004	$200.00
Recipient:  HOSPITAL & HEALTHSYSTEM ASSOC OF PA PAC (HAPAC)

Your Search Returned 10 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
DeNaples, Dominic Dunmore, PA  18512	10/14/2003	$2,500.00
Recipient:  Pa Democratic Party
DeNaples, Louis Dunmore, PA  18512	10/14/2003	$2,500.00
Recipient:  Pa Democratic Party
LEWIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	5/28/2003	$5,000.00
Recipient:  MELVIN, JOAN ORIE COM TO ELECT SUPREME CT
Louis Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	6/18/2003	$1,000.00
Recipient:  House Republican Campaign Committee 2004, Inc.
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	11/3/2003	$2,500.00
Recipient:  PANELLA, JACK JUDGE FOR SUPERIOR CT
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	11/3/2003	$2,500.00
Recipient:  PANELLA, JACK JUDGE FOR SUPERIOR CT
Louis Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	10/23/2003	$1,000.00
Recipient:  Rangos, Jill Com to Elect
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	10/23/2003	$1,000.00
Recipient:  REP STATE COM OF PA
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	12/11/2003	$5,000.00
Recipient:  SENATE REP CAMPAIGN COM
Louis DeNaples Dunmore, PA  18512	3/19/2003	$5,000.00
Recipient:  Toole, Michael for Judge Committee

Your Search Returned 8 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
Dominick Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	9/12/2002	$150.00
Recipient:  Musto Senate Committee
LOUIS DENAPLES MOSCOW, PA  184449331	11/4/2002	$1,500.00
Recipient:  CAMPAIGN 2000
Louis Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	2/11/2002	$10,000.00
Recipient:  House Republican Campaign Committee 2002, Inc.
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	9/3/2002	$10,000.00
Recipient:  HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE 2002, INC.
Louis Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	9/12/2002	$150.00
Recipient:  Musto Senate Committee
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	9/25/2002	$15,000.00
Recipient:  REP STATE COM OF PA
LOUIS DENAPLES SCRANTON, PA  18512	5/1/2002	$15,000.00
Recipient:  VEON, MIKE COM TO ELECT
LOUIS DENAPLES SCRANTON, PA  18512	5/1/2002	$15,000.00
Recipient:  VEON, MIKE COM TO ELECT

Your Search Returned 10 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
Dominick Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	9/11/2001	$150.00
Recipient:  Musto Senate Committee
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	9/13/2001	$1,000.00
Recipient:  BOWES, MARY JANE FOR SUPERIOR CT COM
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	10/31/2001	$1,000.00
Recipient:  DEM STATE SENATE CAMPAIGN COM
Louis DeNaples Dunmore, PA  18512	12/28/2001	$1,000.00
Recipient:  Fisher for Governor
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	10/11/2001	$1,000.00
Recipient:  FORD ELLIOTT, KATE COM TO ELECT JUDGE
Louis Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	6/6/2001	$1,500.00
Recipient:  House Republican Campaign Committee 2002, Inc.
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	12/14/2001	$5,000.00
Recipient:  HUGHES, VINCENT CITIZENS FOR
Louis Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	9/11/2001	$150.00
Recipient:  Musto Senate Committee
Louis DeNaples Dunmore, PA  18512	4/24/2001	$20,000.00
Recipient:  The Ridge Leadership Fund
MR LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	10/6/2001	$1,000.00
Recipient:  EAKIN, J MICHAEL FRIENDS OF JUDGE

Your Search Returned 8 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
Dominick Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	9/20/2000	$75.00
Recipient:  Musto Senate Committee
John Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	9/20/2000	$75.00
Recipient:  Musto Senate Committee
L & D DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	10/12/2000	$875.00
Recipient:  LACKAWANNA CO DEM COM
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	9/7/2000	$400.00
Recipient:  BELARDI, FRED PEOPLE FOR KEEP THEIR REP
Louis DeNaples Dunmore, PA  18512	10/20/2000	$10,000.00
Recipient:  Friends of Mike Fisher Committee,Inc.
LOUIS DENAPLES DUNMORE, PA  18512	2/25/2000	$1,000.00
Recipient:  HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
Louis Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	9/20/2000	$75.00
Recipient:  Musto Senate Committee
Mr. & Mrs. Louis Denaples Dunmore, PA  18512	5/16/2000	$10,000.00
Recipient:  House Republican Campaign Committee

Your Search Returned 4 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
D&L REALTY DUNMORE, PA	12/14/2005	$5,000.00
Recipient:  BELARDI, FRED PEOPLE FOR KEEP THEIR REP
D&L REALTY DUNMORE, PA  18512	1/6/2005	$10,000.00
Recipient:  GROW PA
D&L REALTY DUNMORE, PA  18512	3/4/2005	$5,000.00
Recipient:  RAMALEY, SEAN CITIZENS FOR
D&L REALTY PAC , PA	9/9/2005	$5,000.00
Recipient:  FRIENDS OF DON CUNNINGHAM

Your Search Returned 2 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
D&L REALTY DUNMORE, PA  18512	4/15/2004	$25,000.00
Recipient:  CORBETT, TOM FRIENDS OF
D&L REALTY DUNMORE, PA  18512	10/27/2004	$1,000.00
Recipient:  LACKAWANNA CO DEM COM

Your Search Returned 2 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
RAM CONSULTANTS STURGES-OLYPHANT, PA  18447	10/14/2005	$10,000.00
Recipient:  CITIZENS FOR A BETTER PENNSYLVANIA
RAM CONSULTANTS STURGES-OLYPHANT, PA  18447	10/4/2005	$10,000.00
Recipient:  SENATE REP CAMPAIGN COM

Your Search Returned 1 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
RAM Consultants Sturges-Olyphant, PA  18447	9/7/2004	$30,000.00
Recipient:  The Committee to Elect Mike Veon

Your Search Returned 4 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
RAM CONSULTANTS STURGES, PA  18447	1/2/2002	$50,000.00
Recipient:  CAMPAIGN 2000
RAM CONSULTANTS STURGES-OLYPHANT, PA  18447	10/14/2002	$50,000.00
Recipient:  DEM STATE SENATE CAMPAIGN COM
RAM CONSULTANTS STURGES OLYPHANT, PA  18447	8/6/2002	$100,000.00
Recipient:  RENDELL, EDWARD FOR GOVERNOR
RAM CONSULTANTS STURGES OLYPHANT, PA  18447	8/13/2002	$15,000.00
Recipient:  RENDELL, EDWARD FOR GOVERNOR

Your Search Returned 1 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
RAM CONSULTANTS STURGES, PA  18447	7/27/2001	$50,000.00
Recipient:  CAMPAIGN 2000

Your Search Returned 2 Records.

Contributor	Date	Amount
RAM CONSULTANTS STURGES, PA  18447	10/18/2000	$5,000.00
Recipient:  CAMPAIGN 2000
RAM CONSULTANTS STURGES OLYPHANT, PA  18447	10/26/2000	$45,000.00
Recipient:  DEM STATE SENATE CAMPAIGN COM

Labels: casino, Ed Rendell, Louis DeNaples, Mike Veon, slots, Tom Corbett