Prosecutors investigating whether a casino owner lied when he said he had no ties to organized crime charged one of his friends, a priest, with perjury Wednesday for allegedly lying about his own connections to the mob.The Rev. Joseph F. Sica was arrested outside his home in Scranton on Wednesday morning. Sica is a friend of Louis DeNaples, who owns the Mount Airy Casino Resort in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Sica's arrest is the first to result from the grand jury probe, which is focused on whether DeNaples misled the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board when he said he had no connections to organized crime.
DeNaples, a wealthy Scranton-area businessman whose other businesses range from banking to garbage disposal, opened Pennsylvania's first freestanding casino in October under a 2004 state law that legalized slots and authorized as many as 14 casinos.
Six have opened so far -- DeNaples' facility in the Pocono Mountains and five at horse-racing tracks.
Sica is accused of lying to the grand jury on Aug. 29 about his relationship with the late Russell Bufalino, an organized crime boss who served lengthy prison terms in the 1970s and '80s and died in the 1990s.
The grand jury recommended charging Sica with perjury, and the Dauphin County district attorney filed the charge Wednesday.
The grand jury presentment said Sica falsely told the grand jury that he had met Bufalino only by chance and had no relationship with him.
Prosecutors said the grand jury's presentment was based partly on separate photographs that showed the priest arm-in-arm with Bufalino and with William D'Elia, who reputedly heads the Bufalino crime family now, at what appeared to be a barbecue.
Also, in a lengthy 1982 letter to Ginny Thornburgh, the wife of then-Gov. Dick Thornburgh, Sica referred to Bufalino as "my friend" and asked her to help free Bufalino, whom he called an innocent man, prosecutors said.
It was unclear whether Sica had retained a lawyer, and a message left at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton was not immediately returned.
Sica was scheduled to be arraigned later Wednesday before Dauphin County Judge Todd A. Hoover, who is overseeing the ongoing grand jury investigation.
The presentment said Sica's alleged lie is relevant to the grand jury probe because it is investigating whether DeNaples committed perjury in statements about his relationship with Bufalino and because of the "close, public relationship" between DeNaples and the priest.
The seven-member gaming board has the authority to revoke a slots license by a majority vote. In that event, the licensee would forfeit the $50 million fee.
Eventually, revenue from slot machines is expected to generate $1 billion a year for reductions in property and other local taxes across the state.
In 1978, DeNaples was fined $10,000 and placed on probation 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.
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