Mount Airy owner DeNaples charged with perjury

HARRISBURG (AP) — Mount Airy Casino Resort owner Louis DeNaples was charged with perjury on Wednesday and accused of lying about his connections to organized crime figures to win a casino license.

DeNaples, who opened Mount Airy in October with the blessing of state gambling regulators, was charged with four counts of perjury by the Dauphin County district attorney’s office after a seven-month grand jury investigation. His company, Mount Airy No. 1 LLC, was also charged.

Prosecutors say DeNaples didn’t tell the truth to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board when he talked about his relationship with four people.

The four are: William D’Elia, the reputed head of a Scranton-area organized crime family; the late Russell Bufalino, an organized crime boss; Ron White, a now-dead Philadelphia businessman accused of trying to trade government contracts for political donations; and Shamsud-din Ali, who is serving a seven-year prison term for using his political connections in Philadelphia to obtain dubious loans, donations and city contracts.

DeNaples’ spokesman, Kevin Feeley, said DeNaples categorically denies the charges.

“Anybody who knows Louis DeNaples knows that he tells the truth,” Feeley said. “And he’s eager to have the chance to show he did exactly that before the gaming board.”

The gaming board, which vetted casino applications, awarded a license to DeNaples after investigating his background for organized crime ties, financial troubles and more.

Through Feeley, DeNaples has maintained that he has no ties to organized crime. His lawyers have accused Dauphin County prosecutors of misusing the grand jury as a fishing expedition and a tool in a turf war over who should regulate the state’s casinos.

More than two dozen witnesses, including D’Elia, appeared in front of the grand jury. D’Elia is in federal prison awaiting trial on charges of money laundering and conspiring to kill a prosecution witness.
Dauphin County prosecutors brought the case to the grand jury last year after reviewing information given to them by state police investigators.

A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board did not immediately return a message left Wednesday.

DeNaples, 67, has business interests that span waste hauling, auto parts and real estate. He chairs a bank in which he is the biggest shareholder, and is a generous philanthropist and campaign donor.

DeNaples opened his casino and hotel on the site of the storied, but shuttered, Mount Airy Lodge resort with the promise of spreading economic cheer to northeastern Pennsylvania. Anticipating that he would beat a competing group to win the license, DeNaples had already razed the old lodge and broken ground on the new facility by the time the gaming board voted unanimously for him in December 2006.

For years, law enforcement agents have taken an interest in DeNaples, whose name has surfaced several times in state and federal intelligence reports on organized crime.

In 1978, DeNaples was fined $10,000 and placed on probation for three years after pleading no contest to a felony charge of conspiracy to defraud the federal government in a case involving government payments to clean up the aftermath of Hurricane Agnes.

The grand jury previously charged the Rev. Joseph F. Sica, a Roman Catholic priest and friend of DeNaples, with perjury. Prosecutors said Sica lied to the grand jury about his relationship with Bufalino.

Bufalino served lengthy prison terms in the 1970s and ’80s and died in the 1990s.

Ali, 67, is serving his a seven-year prison term for using his political connections to obtain dubious loans, donations and city contracts stemming from a federal investigation of Philadelphia’s “pay-to-play” culture.

White, a key fundraiser for former Mayor John F. Street, died of cancer in 2004 before he was to be tried as the central figure in the sprawling federal corruption probe, which centered on the awarding of city contracts.

To view a copy of the presentment, go to http://thepoconos.com/static/20080130denaplespresent.pdf