DaveRalis.com | The Daily Rant

Purposely crying poor in Pennsylvania

2008-03-17T21:35:00.002-04:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Smerconish: Legalize hookers

2008-03-16T20:38:00.004-04:00

Right-wing Philly radio talk show host Michael Smerconish has gone off the deep end, again, saying in light of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's downfall he hopes America may soon be ready to grow up and debate decriminalizing the sex industry.

Smerconish quotes extensively from Spitzer's mentor, constitutional law professor Alan Dershowitz of all people, in his Sunday column in the Philadelphia Daily News.

"Twenty years from now, people will look back at this and say, 'What? Somebody had to resign or be indicted because he went and paid for an adult prostitute who was making $5,000 an hour?' Where's the victim here?" Dershowitz told him.

Smerconish does him one better, writing, "It's time to bring the world's oldest profession aboveboard in communities willing to allow it, clean up the trade, and clamp down on the exploitation. Let government share in the revenue, but otherwise stay out of the private affairs of consenting adults."

I'm no prude. But while that may seem very European and progressive, there's just one flaw in the logic of both men.

Britain and other European countries are, in fact, currently debating whether to start prosecuting male Johns, instead of the women they hire in an effort to curb human trafficking.

And if you don't think human trafficking occurs in the U.S., you're sadly mistaken. According to U.S. government estimates, about 800,000 to 900,000 men, women and children are trafficked each year across international borders worldwide for sex and other purposes; approximately 18,000 to 20,000 of those victims are trafficked into the United States itself.

The victim here isn't the man's career and potential public embarassment in the newspaper, but the young woman who is spreading her legs for money - no matter what price she is paid. All this would change is her pimp.

The law should regard any woman who decides to whore herself for money as a sex slave, no matter if she's doing it willingly and isn't hooked on drugs or alcohol. Money is addicting too and this is not an occupation to which young girls should aspire.

Just ask Ashley Alexandra Dupre, Spitzer's call girl, now. She is claiming through her lawyer that the New York Times' and Associated Press' use of photos from her myspace page violated her right to privacy and potential copyright laws.

Hustler Publisher Larry Flynt also told the AP Friday that he e-mailed Dupre, offering her $1 million to pose nude for his magazine, but hasn't heard back so far.

Frankly, given our state government's failure to responsibly regulate its fledgling slots parlor industry, I would never want prostitution to be legal in Slotsylvania. One vice is enough.

And to think, four years ago when the law legalizing slots gambling passed without any public debate, I joked, "All the Legislature has to do now is sell off the liquor stores so that booze flows freely, add some dice and card games, and let people wear concealed, unlicensed firearms to protect themselves from the social ills the rest will create. And then, voila, we have the Wild West all over again."

I completely forgot the horizontal refreshment. How rude of me.

Time to put the blinders on in Slotsylvania

2008-03-15T23:10:00.007-04:00

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

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

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

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

Oops, too late.

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

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

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

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

She also stopped an effort last October - three months before DeNaples' indictment - to put state police in charge of slot licensee background investigations, saying, "I don't see any glaring problems that have been brought to light by today's testimony that we need to rush to fix."

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

It's much more than that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MORE ABOUT LOUIS DENAPLES
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.

Thy casinos' will be done, thy kingdom come in Slotsylvania?

2008-03-14T23:47:00.000-04:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And everyone in Slotsylvania simply shrugs and accepts it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jack's back!

2008-03-13T23:16:00.002-04:00

He may still be on parole after a decade in jail, but Dr. Jack Kevorkian is now planning a run for Congress even though it usual works the other way around.

Yep, Dr. Death now wants to become Congressman Death (I-Michigan) because "we need some honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington."

Let's not let a little thing like mass murder spoil the fun.

Kevorkian, 79, claims to have helped at least 130 people die from 1990 until 1998 - the year he was charged in the death of Thomas Youk, a 52-year-old Oakland County man with Lou Gehrig's disease. He was released from prison in June 2007 after serving the minimum of his 10- to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder

Kevorkian has promised not to help in any other assisted suicides and could go back to prison if he did.

Although I actually agree with Kevorkian's stance on the right of self-(de)termination, I can only imagine the reaction of his rookie Congressional colleagues in the class of 2008.

"Hey," they might say, "didn't that old geezer kill a guy half a generation ago?"

You better believe they'll listen to what he has to say. In fact, if he wins, I'd recommend making him Parliamentarian.

Who's going to mess with a near-octagenarian who has a true passion for pulling the plug on people?

In fact, it's only a shame he could be paroled in time for the Terri Schiavo case.

I can think of no one more qualified to debate the subject. He would have made ex-U.S. Senator Rick Santorum pay for intervening, rather than waiting for us Pennsylvania voters to turn him out of office.

If Kevorkian does make it to Capitol Hill, either George W. Bush or the next president might even name him Ambassador to Euthanasia. ("You know, that big (in)continent to the right.")

Empires fall

2008-03-12T22:18:00.003-04:00

Twas a dark day for the Vince of Darkness and the sheriff of Wall Street Wednesday, proving once more that pride cometh before the fall.

Not only did state Sen. Vincent Fumo announce he won't seek re-election after 30 years in the Pennsylvania Legislature, but the powerful appropriations committee veteran also learned the tax bill on his Philly mansion just quadrupled.

Surprisingly, Fumo, 64, who suffered a heart attack two weeks ago after undergoing back surgery just a few days before, did not blame his physical ailments for his decision to quit the race. So don't go thinking the obstinate pug saw the light - and dead relatives beckoning.

Instead, Fumo cited the stress of trying to defend a 139-count federal indictment against him for allegedly extorting $17 million from PECO/Exelon for a non-profit group in his district and then trying to cover it up.

"I simply do not think it is right for me to ask the voters who have put their faith in me all these years ... to continue voting for me one more time while there is a cloud hanging over my head," a somber Fumo said.

He routinely used Senate employees to attend to matters at his Victorian-style mansion in Philadelphia, a beach house in New Jersey and a farm outside Harrisburg, the indictment against Fumo says. He also allegedly ordered Senate employees to destroy e-mail correspondence on his computers after he became aware of the investigation.

A trial is scheduled for September. Fumo, of course, maintains his innocence.

This will be the feds' third swing at Fumo. He has beaten criminal charges twice before, including once when the trial judge vacated the conviction in 1981.

The feds get an intentional walk for forcing New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer from office without even bringing charges against him for patronizing high-priced hookers and bringing them across state lines.

"I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people's work," Spitzer said, his weary-looking wife, Silda, standing at his side, again, as the corruption-fighting politician once known as Mr. Clean answered for his actions for the second time in three days.

Private failings, what a nice euphamism for spending a reported $80,000 for sex. It was a spectacular collapse for a man who cultivated an image as a hard-nosed politician hell-bent on cleansing the state of corruption.

Spitzer served two terms as New York attorney general, earning the nickname "Sheriff of Wall Street" for pursuing white collar criminals and was elected governor with a record share of the vote in 2006. The tall, athletic, square-jawed Spitzer was sometimes mentioned as a potential candidate for president.

Still, I guess it's better than getting a blowjob from an intern and claiming you didn't actually have sex (Bill Clinton), or putting your unqualified man-crush in charge of your state's Homeland Security and then allegedly getting extorted by him (Jim McGreevey).

Spitzer's resignation made him the 22nd governor in U.S. history to fall from grace. A dozen resigned just like he did and 10 were forcibly removed, according to Stateline.org.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell told the Radio Pennsylvania Network that if anyone had told him that a governor would get caught up in a call-girl scandal, Spitzer would have been his "50th pick out of 50 governors. ... You never know what lurks in a person's personal life."

This from the same governor who accepted at least $115,000 in campaign contributions from an indicted slots parlor owner with reputed mob ties and won't give the money back?

Later in the day, Rendell stood next to Fumo as he ended his political career.

It's time like these that I remember what Will Rogers said. "I am not a member of any organized party - I am a Democrat."

Lobbyists spent $53.5M on N.J. lawmakers in '07

2008-03-11T22:09:00.006-04:00

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?

D.A. to Slotsylvania A.G.: Return DeNaples' money

2008-03-10T21:30:00.006-04:00

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.

Full text of Morganelli's press release

2008-03-10T21:22:00.001-04:00

Since Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli sent his press release via e-mail, but did not post it on his Web site, I'd thought I'd print the whole thing for you to read his rather lengthy argument.

The underlined portions were emphasized by Morganelli, not by me. It's verbatim, except I cleaned up a few extra spaces here and there.

FOR RELEASE: Monday March 10, 2008

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli Says AG Tom Corbett Compromises Integrity of Office of Attorney General By Failing To Cut Financial Ties To Alleged Mob Associate Louis DeNaples

Today, I am requesting Attorney General Tom Corbett to immediately return all monies, which appear to be somewhere between $40,000 - $55,000 , that were contributed to him by Mr. Louis DeNaples and any entities controlled by Mr. DeNaples including, but not limited to, RAM Consultants and D& L Realty. 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. Mr. Corbett's recalcitrance compromises the integrity of the Office of Attorney General.

First, let me make one point perfectly clear: Mr. Denaples IS INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, and THE CHARGES AGAINST HIM ARE ONLY, AT THIS POINT, ALLEGATIONS. I do not know Mr. DeNaples and have no opinion of him. My concerns today are not about Mr. DeNaples who is entitled to due process, but about our Attorney General. It is astonishing that our Attorney General sees no problem with the chief law enforcement officer of the state keeping large amounts of money given to him by a person who is now indicted for perjury, allegedly for lying about his ties to the mob and organized crime in order to obtain a gaming license which Mr. Corbett oversees as Attorney General.

Here are the facts:

1. Pennsylvania law at 4 Pa.CSA 1517 (c.1) provides that the Attorney General has the PRIMARY authority to investigate and institute criminal proceedings under the gaming law. In fact, the legislature specifically authorized the creation of a gaming unit in OAG. Although the law recognizes that each individual District Attorney ALSO has powers to investigate and institute criminal proceedings (4 Pa.CSA 1517(d)(1)), the law SPECIFICALLY grants the authority to the AG and creates the "gaming unit" in OAG. See also 4 Pa.CSA 1517 (d)(2).

2. In 2004 and 2005, Tom Corbett received a number of separate campaign contributions from Mr. Louis DeNaples. Campaign records show that Mr. Corbett received the following contributions:

January 27, 2004 - $10,000 from D&L Realty
April 15, 2004 - $25,000 from D&L Realty
January 20, 2005- $5,000 from D&L Realty

Online campaign records may not be complete , and contributions to Mr. Corbett totaling $55,000 were reported in the Philadelphia Inquierer on September 16, 2007 by reporter Craig McCoy. The largest single contribution received by Mr. Corbett on April 15, 2004, was less than 3 months BEFORE the slots law was passed on July 5, 2004. The contribution to Mr. Corbett on January 20, 2005 was just 2 days after the day Mr. Corbett was sworn in as Attorney General and well after the slots law had passed giving oversight of gaming law to the Attorney General. Once Mr. DeNaples applied for a casino license, Mr. DeNaples was barred by law from making campaign contributions. But DeNaples was smart enough to make all the contributions BEFORE applying, gaining favor with Mr. Corbett, the chief law enforcement officer of Pennsylvania specifically charged with gaming enforcement.

3. On March 2, 2008, Sharon Smith of the Patriot News reported that Attorney General Corbett defiantly refuses to return the large campaign contributions received from Mr.Louis DeNaples who is presently under indictment by a Pennsylvania grand jury for perjury, allegedly for lying under oath about his ties to the mob and organized crime in order to gain a slots license. Mr. Corbett's refusal to cut his financial ties with the alleged mob associate was also reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune Review on March 9, 2008.

Clearly, the financial ties between Mr. Corbett and Mr. Denaples has been and will continue to be troublesome for the integrity and independence of the OAG. It has in effect handicapped the Attorney General in his legal duty to oversee gaming. For example, Attorney General Corbett had authority to investigate Mr. DeNaples for perjury, but chose to permit Dauphin County DA Ed Marsico to pursue the matter. Mr. Corbett's spokesman has said that the large amounts of money Mr. Cobett received from Mr. DeNaples played no role in Mr. Corbett's deferral to DA Marsico. But how can the public be so assured? There is an appearance that the Corbett/DeNaples connection hampered the Attorney General. There is an appearance of impropriety. The public deserves to hear in detail, directly from Mr. Corbett, and NOT his spokesperson, on why he passed on the DeNaples alleged perjury matter. Was it the money he got from Mr. DeNaples? A friendship? Some other reason?

Another question that needs to be answered is why the state police brought the DeNaples case to the DA instead of the AG. WHY? Or did, perhaps, the state police bring the case to the AG and he declined? The DA of Dauphin County Ed Marsico appears to be doing the heavy lifting on DeNaples and other gambling related matters. It has been reported that DA Marsico was asked to handle prosecutions of several individuals who ran afoul of the gambling act's provisions regulating political campaign contributions. Mr. Marsico reportedly said that these "minor" cases were settled with regulatory fines and without criminal charges. If this is so, why is DA Marsico handling these matters when AG Corbett is primarily charged with gaming enforcement and has a specific unit in the OAG to do so?

The Corbett/DeNaples financial tie also hampers the OAG going forward. On Sunday March 9, 2008, the Pittburgh Tribune Review rightly called for an investigation into the clearly inconsistent testimony between state police officials and others regarding the issuing of the license to Mr. DeNaples. Unfortunately, the Tribune-Review's call for the Attorney General to investigate cannot occur until Mr. Corbett gives back the DeNaples money. Mr. Corbett cannot ignore the clear conflict of interest he has relative to any investigations related to the DeNaples license.

It is perplexing why AG Corbett continues to fail to recognize conflicts of interest. Just like the BonusGate investigation where he is also severely conflicted and continues to jeopardize the ultimate outcome of any prosecutions, here again Mr. Corbett is allowing campaign cash to affect his duties. Mr. Corbett cannot have it both ways. He cannot continue to scoop up large campaign contributions from people he has an obligation to investigate. Mr. Corbett's non-recognition of the cloud that now hangs over the OAG is incomprehensible. If Mr. DeNaples is truly connected to organized crime figures as alleged, should the Attorney General also be so connected by a $55,000 campaign contribution? Again, I am not questioning Mr. Corbett's integrity. But I do again question his judgement in failing to recognize that he should give back all the money he received from Mr. DeNaples.

Lastly, Mr. Corbett may argue that Mr. DeNaples gave money to many officials of both political parties and that all contributions were, at the time, legal. Such an argument fails to appreciate the unique nature of the Office of Attorney General. Unlike other recipients of campaign funds from Mr. DeNaples, the Attorney General is the state's chief law enforcement officer. Also unlike the other recipients, the AG is uniquely and specifically charged with gaming oversight. Clearly, Mr. Corbett, as the chief law enforcement officer of Pennsylvania, must immediately give back all money received from Mr. DeNaples. He must disconnect the OAG from any relationship with a person who now stands indicted as associated with organized crime. And, Mr. Corbett must answer why he has declined to date to investigate the circumstances surrounding the issuing of the gaming license to Mr. DeNaples and the apparent conflicting testimony that has surfaced regarding same.

Contact: John Morganelli 610-248-7701

Something stinks in Slotsylvania

2008-03-09T19:19:00.010-04:00

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.

MORE ABOUT LOUIS DENAPLES
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.

Oh, Snap! What have you done to your site now?

2008-03-08T22:28:00.002-05:00

I love new Web technology, as you can tell from the new pop-up windows that now activate everytime you linger over most of the hyperlinks on my Web site.

Try it: Pa. Gambling Videos

They're not ads, folks. Although there is an ad-driven component to it.

They're snapshots, little windows previewing the web page that the hyperlink points to. If you click on them, they will pop open up slightly to give you an even bigger preview.

If you like what you see, click on it or the hyperlink and it will activate in a new browser's window.

Let me know what you think in the comments section of this post.

If you truly hate the pop-ups and want to turn them off, simply point your mouse on the little cog wheel, wait for the dropdown menu and hit "disable."

Some things I still don't understand in Slotsylvania

2008-03-07T23:55:00.003-05:00

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?

MORE ABOUT LOUIS DENAPLES
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.

Somebody else may be lying in Slotsylvania...

2008-03-07T03:05:00.004-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But they appear to have done just that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why would that be, I wonder?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MORE ABOUT LOUIS DENAPLES
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.

Slotsylvania corruption a concern, but Rendell isn't blamed

2008-03-05T22:59:00.002-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's where things get a little weird.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MORE ABOUT LOUIS DENAPLES
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.

Slotsylvania gambling regulators failed their duty

2008-03-04T21:26:00.009-05:00

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.

MORE ABOUT LOUIS DENAPLES
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.

Corbett, Rendell keeping DeNaples' money

2008-03-03T23:11:00.004-05:00

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.

MORE ABOUT LOUIS DENAPLES
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.

Slots of Louis DeNaples in the news

2008-03-02T20:55:00.003-05:00

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.

MORE ABOUT LOUIS DENAPLES
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.

George W. Bush on $4 a gallon gas

2008-03-01T21:17:00.005-05:00

How bad are gas prices these days?

Let me put it this way, 71 percent of Americans believe that by summer it could reach $4 a gallon, a new survey of 1,001 people suggests. More than half (51 percent) cited fuel prices as their top economic worry for 2008.

Prices are so high here in Pennsylvania that state Sen. James J. Rhoades (R-Mahanoy City) introduced on Tuesday a resolution asking President Bush and the U.S. Congress "to control exceedingly high gas and energy prices" even if that means they have "to control the price increases energy suppliers pass on to consumers." Senate Resolution 244 was then referred to the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.

But when President George W. Bush was asked by a reporter this week about the advice he'd given an average American, Bush responded: "That's interesting. I hadn't heard that. ... I know it's high now."

The president then said the best way to help consumers cope is to make his tax cuts for the rich permanent, according to CNN.

The Slotsylvania gaming lists are up

2008-02-29T21:07:00.003-05:00

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?

READ THE LISTS
To read the state Ethics Commission's Gaming Lists, click here.

The Slotsylvania gambling 'reform' panacea

2008-02-28T22:24:00.004-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

The law:

Does not require the gaming board to hold all applications hearings and its deliberations in public view.

Does not outlaw lobbying by gambling interests, only direct campaign contributions. It's still legal for a slots parlor owner to hand money to a lobbyist who donates it to a lawmaker. Last year, DeNaples spent $67,375 last year lobbying, state records show. However, the state's lobbying disclosure law doesn't require him to say which lawmakers benefited from it.

Does not require that some of the state's $1 billion rake from slots gambling be used to treat gambling addiction, even though Colins told lawmakers that more than 200 citizens across Pennsylvania have already been "self-excluded" from the state's seven operating slots parlors. One is likely a woman who gambled away $573,000 at Harrah's Chester Casino.

No one can convince me that one provision in the 2004 slots law wasn't specifically designed to make sure DeNaples got his license in December 2006. Why else would the legislators have specified anyone with a felony older than 15 years can have a license? DeNaples admitted to a federal felony in 1978.

Ask yourself this: If lawmakers were serious about keeping criminals out of the casinos, why would they let any felon have a license?

Of course, Pennsylvania's other laws are so lax that while a felon must wait five years after his conviction before he can vote again, there are no laws barring the same felon from making campaign contributions or lobbying lawmakers while he waits.

It would be ironic if state Attoney General Tom Corbett ends up in charge of doing the background checks, as some lawmakers want, considering it would put him in the same potential position a disgraced predecessor in the post faced.

In 1995, then-Attorney General Ernie Preate Jr. went to jail for 14 months on mail fraud charges stemming from $40,000 in campaign contributions he solicited from illegal video poker machine operators and failed to report. He later failed to seek the maximum criminal penalties against distributors of illegal video poker games because some of them had contributed to his campaign.

Then-Gov. Tom Ridge asked Corbett to fill out Preate's remaining term. He was later elected to the post in November 2004 in a close election by a two-percentage point margin, a biography Web page says.

One of those who helped fund Corbett's 2004 campaign was DeNaples, who contributed at least $35,000 to the top prosecutor through two of the many businesses he owns.

I say at least because state campaign records are so incomplete and so shoddily disclosed, that's it's nearly impossible to track a total dollar amount. I do know DeNaples contributed at least $679,375 to possibly more than $1 million to the campaigns of Corbett, Gov. Ed Rendell, legislative leaders and judges between 2000 and 2004.

Has Corbett been swayed by the money?

Let's put it this way, although prosecuting DeNaples might have represented a conflict of interest for him, Corbett says he let the Dauphin County District Attorney prosecute him because he was already investigating other gambling-related matters.

Meanwhile, Friday makes it exactly two years to the day since Corbett announced the formation of a seven-attorney unit to investigate gambling-related corruption allegations involving elected officials. However, the group has not made a single major prosecution for anything gambling-related.

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."

MORE ABOUT LOUIS DENAPLES
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.

Pa. public pension plan doing just fine

2008-02-27T22:21:00.003-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BOOZE ON WHEELS, PLANE FOR SALE

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

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

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

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

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

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

SLOTS TO EXPLAIN

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

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

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

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

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

MORE ABOUT LOUIS DENAPLES
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.

Preaching to the wrong choir in Slotsylvania

2008-02-26T21:24:00.002-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PHEAA SUSPENDS FEDERAL STUDENT LOANS

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

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

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

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

Never assume anything in Slotsylvania

2008-02-25T22:04:00.007-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In other Slotsylvania news:

Mafia book author Charles Brandt, who has read the grand jury presentments against DeNaples, told The Citizens Voice of Wilkes-Barre that Dauphin County prosecutors may have a hard time proving their perjury case. "I found the questions inartfully crafted, and they left lots of wiggle room," Brandt said.

DeNaples' spokesman, Philly PR guy Kevin Feeley, was profiled in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. Among the other clients he's trying to spin is the city tax board which lost the file on Sen. Vince Fumo's $6 million mansion.

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, the sole candidate to file for the Democratic party's nomination for state Attorney General, has begun to attack Republican incumbent Tom Corbett for accepting at least $35,000 in campaign contributions from DeNaples.

The Morning Call has caught on to my idea that state Rep. Harold James (D-Philadelphia) is purposely dragging his feet and refusing to bring any slots reform bills up for a vote in the House Gaming Oversight Committee he chairs.

Two of the bills the Oversight Committee has pigeonholed, H.B. 1715 and H.B. 1975, would require $1.5 million to $3.5 million from the state's rake of slots gambling be used to treat gambling addicts. Gaming Board Chairwoman Mary DiGiacomo Colins testified last week that already 200 people across the state have excluded themselves from the state's seven open slots parlors. One of them is likely a woman who gambled away $573,000 at a Harrah's Chester Casino. She is now cited as a statistic in Casino-Free Philadelphia's Operation Hidden Costs, an anti-casino study it plans to unveil Wednesday.

MORE ABOUT LOUIS DENAPLES
For more about Louis DeNaples and to read my complete take on this long-predicted Slotsylvania snafu, click here.

Wipe that smile off your face now, Bob!

2008-02-24T22:38:00.002-05:00

In a case federal prosecutors claimed was of mammoth proportions, the founder of the company that manufactures the male enhancement pill Enzyte - and his mom - were both convicted Friday of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.

A U.S. District Court jury found Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals owner Steve Warshak and his mother, Harriet, bilked customers out of $100 million through a series of deceptive ads, manipulated credit card transactions and the company's refusal to accept returns or cancel orders, according to the Associated Press.

Federal prosecutors argued unauthorized credit card charges generated thousands of complaints over unordered products.

According to the indictment, customers responding to free-trial offers were placed in an automatic shipping program, through which credit cards were billed without authorization. The company at various times offered full refunds, "double your money back," and "triple your money back" guarantees that were false. It also is accused of referring complaints to a director of customer care who did not exist.

Some former employees, including relatives of Warshak, pleaded guilty to other charges and cooperated with prosecutors, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. They testified that the company created fictitious doctors to endorse the pills, fabricated a customer-satisfaction survey and made up numbers to back claims about Enzyte's effectiveness.

The herbal supplement was pitched in national TV commercials by "Smilin' Bob," a goofy grinning mute overly preoccupied by the size of his own manhood.

Warshak was convicted of trying to hide the scheme's profits from the Federal Trade Commission, having an employee hide a truck filled with pills from the Food and Drug Administration, and of obstruction.

I guess the bigger the lie the easier it really is to swallow, a lesson Warshak may learn well if he's sentenced to the full 20 years in prison he now faces. His company may also have to forfeit tens of millions of dollars.

He and his lawyer declined comment after the verdict was read. His mom, however, told the Enquirer she would appeal because "We don't believe it was a fair verdict."

Berkeley agreed to pay $2.5 million last year to settle allegations by attorneys general in Ohio and other states that the company engaged in deceptive practices in the sale of its products. The company did not admit any wrongdoing then.

Connect the Mike Veon dots in Slotsylvania

2008-02-23T21:35:00.005-05:00

Two years after voters threw Mike Veon out of office in anger for the 2005 legislative pay raise, which he was the lone representative to vote against repealing, Veon is just one of 834 registered lobbyists roaming the halls in Harrisburg.

Or is he?

There are now three lobbyists seeking influence for every lawmaker in the Capitol, but Veon is still reaping at least one benefit from holding his former office.

Both Gov. Ed Rendell and the House Democratic Campaign Committee, a group of partisan ratfuckers that Veon used to lead, have come to his aid - bailing out the remaining $45,000 of campaign debt outstanding from his unsuccessful re-election bid in 2006.

The committee wiped out most of the debt, spending $40,683 - money that was donated to the committee to get fellow Democrats elected, not help a former colleague now in the private sector.

To top it off, Veon handed out $80,000 in bonuses to a dozen staff members at his district office using state tax money, touching off an investigation that led to the Bonusgate scandal which is still rocking the 'burg.

State Rep. Todd Eachus (D-Luzerne County), who now chairs the committee, defended his unilateral decision to bail out Veon, telling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette he would have done the same thing for any Democrat who lost.

Yet, two of Veon's former Democratic colleagues, both of whom hail from Beaver County the same as Veon did, have campaign debts the committee hasn't offered to pay off. Rep. Sean Ramaley owes $7,000 from his first campaign for the state House in 2004 and Rep. Vincent Biancucci owes $12,000 from his 2002 and 2004 races, state records show.

Ramaley is withholding judgment at this point, other than saying he would prefer the committee stick to its mission. Biancucci actually defended the move to the Post-Gazette. "This debt was not paid off with any funds coming from the commonwealth," he said.

Why so much deference for Veon then two years after he was ousted?

Is this payback for all he did - for himself and others - during his 22 years in the House?

Does Veon know where all the skeletons are buried and this is hush money? After all, he received $60,000 in campaign contributions from now-indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples.

Or is it something simpler.

Veon not only wanted slots gambling when he was a top Democrat in the state House, he wanted riverboat gambling too and pushed hard to get it. Now that he's a lobbyist, is he still working toward the goal of gambling expansion?

His registration papers with the state don't list what he's lobbying for and he's shown no expenses so far. However, the records do say among Veon's many clients is Malady & Wooten, LLP, which represents "gaming" interests among its clients.

The double-blind of having Veon represent them, means Veon doesn't have to publicly say if he's now lobbying for gambling interests under the state's lobbyist disclosure law. That's how weak the law is.

MORE ABOUT MIKE VEON
For more about lobbyist and former House Democratic whip Mike Veon, click here.