Chief: Fire department to close

A Swoyersville fire chief said his volunteer hose company is being forced to close by authorities because its state-issued licenses to hold bingo games and sell bingo pull tabs to raise operating funds have been revoked.

“(The state) came in November and basically shut us down,” James Pugh, fire chief for Swoyersville Volunteer Hose Co. No. 1, said. “They’re basically bankrupting us. Nobody in the fire company can get a bingo license.”

The state alleges that more than a half million dollars is missing from the hose company, which the chief denies.

Pugh said the fire company has raised anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000 a year from bingo games and selling bingo chance cards.

The hose company has been prohibited, Pugh said, from hosting bingo games because of an on-going investigation of missing funds.

A search warrant and affidavit filed in Luzerne County Court on Monday indicates more than $558,390 is missing from the hose company.

State police at Wyoming and the Luzerne County District Attorney’s Office obtained the search warrant on Aug. 21 for gambling records from six Atlantic City, N.J., casinos.

Authorities are seeking the casino records belonging to Catherine Drago, who Pugh and the search warrant identified as the hose company’s treasurer. Drago, 77, of Forty Fort, couldn’t be reached for comment on Tuesday.

“This has been an ongoing situation for our fire company for more than two years,” Pugh said. “They’re embarrassed and on a fishing expedition.”

Drago submitted an incomplete application to the state Department of State, Bureau of Charitable Organizations, in December 2005 to register the hose company as a charity.

The Bureau of Charitable Organizations conducted an audit of the hose company, the search warrant affidavit says, and found $558,390 in unaccounted income.

The audit showed a total income of $1.32 million, with $765,593 in deposited income at a bank, the search warrant affidavit says.

The search warrant affidavit revealed Drago and her daughter, Carol Gamble, president of the hose company, had issued $416,077 in checks to themselves from January 2004 to September 2006.

More than $285,100 had been returned to the hose company, leaving $130,954 unaccounted from checks that had been written to Drago and Gamble, the search warrant affidavit says. Pugh confirmed that Drago and Gamble are under investigation by authorities.

He added that Drago had the hose company’s finances audited. That showed a discrepancy of 26 cents, but he couldn’t recall when that audit was performed.

“We have no big money missing from the fire company,” Pugh said. “The state came in and they shut us down and made copies of all our records. They confiscated everything, every bingo record. They can’t find anything; they’re embarrassed.”

The search warrant was obtained after authorities searched Drago’s residence and discovered casino courtesy cards to Bally’s, Trump, Clairage, Tropicana, Hilton, Showboat, Sands and Caesars casinos, according to the affidavit. The search warrant permits authorities to obtain Drago’s gambling wagers.

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License to operate bingo games revoked as result of state probe into missing funds, official says.

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