The owner of the Mount Airy Casino Resort yesterday asked a judge to toss out perjury charges against him, arguing that he is a "scapegoat" in a case riddled with leaks and devoid of evidence that he lied to gaming regulators to win a lucrative slots license.
The motions by Louis A. DeNaples offered a glimpse into the vigorous defense he will wage to beat charges that could land the 67-year-old in jail and cost him his $412 million Poconos casino.
The case has focused a critical eye on the state's fledgling gaming industry and raised questions about how applicants for casino licenses are reviewed.
"This prosecution of Louis DeNaples is the most outrageous of its kind that I have ever seen," lead defense attorney Richard A. Sprague said in a statement yesterday. "When you get past the headlines and the leaks . . . you discover that there simply is no basis for a perjury case against him."
The prosecutor, Dauphin County First Assistant District Attorney Fran Chardo, dismissed the defense assertions, saying: "We wouldn't have brought the charges if we didn't think it was the right thing to do."
"A reasonable juror will conclude that he intentionally lied," he added.
Based on recommendations by a grand jury, prosecutors in Harrisburg last month charged DeNaples, a wealthy Scranton businessman, with lying to state gaming regulators about his alleged ties to crime figures. The figures include two reputed mobsters from northeastern Pennsylvania and two Philadelphia men caught up in the City Hall corruption probe four years ago.
According to witness testimony and records presented to the grand jury, DeNaples either was very close to the men socially or had business relationships with them.
In 71 pages of motions filed yesterday in Dauphin County, the defense attacked the case, point by point, as weak and politically motivated. At the heart of the defense: DeNaples, who has pleaded not guilty, didn't lie to gaming investigators because the questions asked in two interviews in August and September 2006 were not specific enough.
For example, one of the four perjury counts stems from answers he gave about William D'Elia, a reputed mob boss awaiting trial on federal charges of money laundering and solicitation of murder.
DeNaples told regulators that he knew D'Elia as a customer at his auto-parts store and the bank he chairs. But prosecutors maintain that the two are much tighter, that D'Elia invited DeNaples to his daughter's wedding and DeNaples gave D'Elia his dead father's rosary beads.
The defense motions note that DeNaples was never asked specifically about the wedding or the rosary beads.
"The result is a total disconnect between DeNaples' testimony and the allegedly contradictory evidence," the motion states.
The defense also dismissed D'Elia, the prosecution's star grand jury witness, as "a corrupt and polluted source if there ever was one."
In a separate but related filing, the defense argued that DeNaples was caught in the middle of an "unholy triumvirate" of D'Elia, the District Attorney's Office, and the state police, which have "combined their forces as allies."
Defense attorneys were referring to a public dispute between the state police and gaming investigators over who conducts background checks on license applicants.
The feud goes back to 2004 when Pennsylvania legalized slot machines. At the time, the state police unsuccessfully sought to do the background screenings, arguing that the state Gaming Control Board's investigations would not be complete without unfettered access to law enforcement files.
Much of the evidence contained in the charges against DeNaples came from state police investigators.
Another motion seeks volumes of records, such as evidence logs and testimony transcripts, from the prosecution.
The defense also wants any references that Chardo made in the closed-door grand jury proceedings to The Godfather or La Cosa Nostra.
Defense lawyers said Chardo had asked a witness about an annual Italian Civic Association event in which crooner Al Martino performed. Chardo allegedly said, "Al Martino - that's the guy from The Godfather!"
(Martino, a South Philly native, portrayed singer Johnny Fontane in The Godfather and The Godfather: Part III.)
The motion states that "such a comment can have no legitimate purpose" other than to "inflame the grand jurors."
Chardo would not comment yesterday about the Godfather reference, citing grand jury secrecy rules.
DeNaples' team accused prosecutors of breaking those rules time and time again by leaking information about the proceedings to reporters.
"The process employed by the Office of the District Attorney was the most notoriously public grand jury investigation in American jurisprudence," the motion avowed.
Chardo stressed that his office had never disclosed any grand jury information.
After DeNaples was charged, the gaming board indefinitely suspended his license and put a trustee in charge of the casino, which opened in October. DeNaples is not allowed to profit from the slots parlor and cannot even set foot inside.
This month, federal banking regulators suspended DeNaples from his position as chairman of First National Community Bancorp Inc., in Dunmore, Pa., where he is the largest shareholder.
Last week, Standard & Poor's cut Mount Airy's ratings to junk-bond status as a result of the legal problems.
Still, business at the casino has been brisk, according to revenue filings with the gaming board. Mount Airy took in $47 million in wagers last week - its fourth-best week since opening.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/special/pa_slots/20080221_DeNaples_filing_rips_perjury_charges.html
