DeNaples indicted on perjury charges

GRAND JURY PROBE Indictment over alleged lies about organized crime figures banishes businessman from Poconos slots palace

HARRISBURG – Three months ago a beaming Louis DeNaples stood in the lobby of the Mount Airy Casino Resort, celebrating the opening of his much-anticipated slots parlor.

Today he’s not allowed to step foot in the facility near Mount Pocono.

The banishment is the result of a four-count indictment handed down Wednesday by a Dauphin County grand jury that charges DeNaples with lying to state gaming officials about his alleged ties to organized crime figures.

The charges led Anne Neeb, executive director of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, to immediately suspend DeNaples’ gaming license. The action turns control of the casino, which will remain open, over to gaming board officials and prohibits DeNaples from taking any profits, or even entering the premises.

Neeb said the action ensures the casino, which employs 850 people and pumps $1.45 million a week in tax revenue into the state, will remain open. All profits that DeNaples would reap will be placed into an escrow account, pending resolution of the case.

The order will remain in effect until at least Tuesday. That’s when a hearing is scheduled before the gaming board, which must decide whether to reverse Neeb or to keep the order in place until the criminal case is resolved.

DeNaples, 67, is a powerful Dunmore businessman who has amassed a fortune through various businesses, including the Keystone Sanitary Landfill and an auto-parts and salvage operation. He is scheduled to turn himself in to face the charges next week. Each perjury count carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison plus stiff fines.

The grand jury began investigating DeNaples seven months ago, after state police investigators brought information to Dauphin County District Attorney Edward Marsico Jr.

The 23-page indictment alleges DeNaples lied about his relationship with reputed mobsters William D’Elia of Hughestown and the late Russell Bufalino, as well as his ties to the late Ron White, a businessman involved in a corruption scandal in Philadelphia, and Shamsud-din Ali, who was convicted of using political connections in Philadelphia to obtain city contracts.

D’Elia, the reputed head of the Bufalino crime family, was one of more than two dozen witnesses who appeared before the grand jury. He is currently awaiting trial in federal court on multiple charges, including money laundering and conspiring to kill a prosecution witness.

DeNaples has repeatedly denied any connection to organized crime figures. On Wednesday, his spokesman, Kevin Feeley, called the charges against DeNaples “outrageous.”

“Anyone who knows Louis DeNaples knows he tells the truth. He is looking forward to doing exactly that and to showing he did exactly that before the gaming board,” Feeley said.

DeNaples’ attorneys have previously accused Marsico of using the grand jury as a fishing expedition and a tool in a turf war over who should regulate the state’s casinos.

“This has been a case prosecuted by press headlines for eight months,” Feeley said. “Mr. DeNaples is looking forward to having the opportunity to finally get this out of the rumor mill and into the courtroom.”

Marsico denied the allegation, saying he has no ulterior motive or grudge against DeNaples.

DeNaples opened Mount Airy in October, 10 months after he secured one of the much-coveted slots licenses awarded by the state. The gaming board’s decision to grant the license to DeNaples was mired in controversy due to his past.

In 1978, DeNaples pleaded no contest to conspiracy to defraud the federal government. Authorities said he submitted inflated invoices for cleanup work following 1972’s Hurricane Agnes flood.

DeNaples’ name has also surfaced several times in state and federal intelligence reports on organized crime. A search warrant affidavit filed in 2001 in connection with a gambling ring investigation also linked him to D’Elia.

The warrant, filed in federal court, quoted informants who said DeNaples made payments to D’Elia and that, in return, D’Elia would do “whatever DeNaples needed.”

On Wednesday, Marsico and board officials defended the agency’s handling of the case.

In a prepared release, Marsico said board investigators suspected DeNaples was lying when asked about his ties to D’Elia and the others. But they were stymied because they did not have the legal power to obtain certain records.

The grand jury did have access to those records, as well as the ability to subpoena witnesses.

“I’m confident that the questions were clear, and that there could be no misunderstanding as to whether or not Mr. DeNaples understood those and he answered falsely,” Marsico said. “There are serious ramifications and there should be.”

The indictment cites the testimony of several witnesses who rebutted DeNaples’ claims that he had only limited contact with D’Elia, Bufalino, White and Ali.

For example, DeNaples said he knew D’Elia only as a customer who patronized his auto parts store and the bank where DeNaples is a director.

But the grand jury had information that DeNaples had been a guest at the wedding of D’Elia’s daughter in 1999, and that authorities investigating the gambling ring had seized DeNaples’ unlisted phone number from an address book found in D’Elia’s car.

Also their relationship ran so deep that after his father died, DeNaples gave his father’s rosary beads to D’Elia.

Regarding Bufalino, D’Elia said he knew him only by name. The grand jury said evidence showed that Bufalino had once given DeNaples a ring he was wearing after DeNaples complimented him on it. Bufalino also gave DeNaples three suits to wear after DeNaples’ home was damaged by a fire.

DeNaples told gaming board investigators he could not clearly remember meeting Ali and that he had no interest in Ali’s proposal to ship waste from Philadelphia to DeNaples’ landfills. The grand jury, however, cited a telephone conversation the FBI recorded in 2002 in which DeNaples told Ali, “it would be business for us and we’d be very appreciative if we got it.”

DeNaples also denied knowing or doing business with White, who was a close associate of former Philadelphia Mayor John Street. Other witnesses recalled a meeting in DeNaples’ office in which he “ranted” about not being able to reach White by telephone after he gave him $50,000, according to the presentment.

The indictment is the second to come out of the DeNaples’ probe. Last month the Rev. Joseph Sica, a Roman Catholic priest and friend of DeNaples, was charged with perjury for allegedly lying to the grand jury about his relationship with Bufalino.

Terrie Morgan-Besecker, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7179.

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