The Quiet Don: The Untold Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino (7 page)

The committee sought the testimony of Jack Parisi, longtime associate of Albert Anastasia, reputed head of Murder, Inc., in New York, about his activities in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, but Parisi entered a Philadelphia hospital the day before the committee’s hearing in August. Doctors confirmed that he was suffering from a chronic leg injury directly attributed to a bullet wound in the hip sustained many years ago. Parisi vanished from New York in 1939, when police began hunting him for two murders. For ten years he enjoyed sanctuary in Pennsylvania coal-field communities until state police flushed him out of a specially designed hideout in Hazleton and turned him over to the New York authorities. Parisi “beat the rap” in the two murder cases and returned to Hazleton, where he blossomed out as production manager in the Nuremberg Dress Company factory at Nuremberg, a few miles from Hazleton. The owner of the company is Harry Strasser, alias Cohen, alias Lefty, with a New York criminal record. Strasser and Anastasia are partners in the Madison Dress Company in Hazleton, and Strasser is also listed as the owner of the Mount Carmel Garment Company, in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania; the Bobby Dress Company, in Dickson City, Pennsylvania; and the Interstate Dress Transportation Company. The committee also has evidence of additional infiltration of the garment industry in Pennsylvania by racket interests, but lack of time and funds compelled the committee to forego a more intensive investigation of this phase of racketeering activity in legitimate business.

Except for the aggressive investigative accomplishments of the Pennsylvania State Police and their noteworthy efforts to cripple lottery operations centered in the cities of northeastern Pennsylvania, the committee finds that official lethargy toward organized gambling is so appalling as to be shocking to the public conscience.

The slap-on-the-wrist attitude evidenced by the “close and stay closed” orders of nebulous tenure can hardly be regarded as an adequate substitute for rigid enforcement that is marked by arrest and conviction and, where the circumstances warrant it, imprisonment.

S
IX

B
y the middle of 2006, construction had already begun on the new Mount Airy Casino Resort as contractors, engineers and planners zipped through local and county zoning hearings.

After buying the old resort, Louis DeNaples sold off its contents and then proceeded to tear down every building standing. Rising in their place would be a lavish hotel and casino to be accompanied by a retail center and eighteen-hole golf course.

But the plan was modest compared to the larger casino proposed for nearby Pocono Manor. Like Mount Airy, Pocono Manor had a long history as a resort destination, having been owned by the Ireland family for years before they decided to sell to a group led by New Jersey developer Greg Matzel and his silent partner, Morris Bailey, a billionaire conservative Jew who belonged to one of the wealthiest congregations in Brooklyn.

Bailey’s money fueled an ambitious plan that would see a new eighteen-story resort hotel rise atop the mountain, complemented by a convention center, an 8,000-seat sports arena, a large lake surrounded by a shopping area and two golf courses. Situated near I-80 and just off I-380, Pocono Manor offered by far the better plan of the two Pocono applicants, and it had a respected industry executive as its president, Dennis Gomes.

Gomes was a major figure in casino circles who in a previous life was a former investigator with the Nevada Gaming Commission who had rooted out much of the organized crime influence in Las Vegas in the late 1970s. Gomes’ work was the basis for the Martin Scorsese film
Casino
. Gomes later went on to become the president of several casinos, including the Tropicana and Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, and the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. His participation in the Pocono Manor project added instant credibility to the plan.

A third application, from Dr. Joseph Mattioli, the owner of famed NASCAR track Pocono Raceway, envisioned a casino placed next door to the tri-oval track. But Mattioli pulled the plan after learning that DeNaples indeed had his eyes set on a gaming license. Mattioli knew that neither he nor Pocono Manor would ever get a license over Louis DeNaples.

The gaming board was on a strict timeline and was looking to award its large, stand-alone gaming licenses by December 2006. Over the course of that summer, the board began its background investigations, which included assembling all personal and financial records of Louis DeNaples.

Raised in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, DeNaples was born to Margaret, a homemaker, and Patrick, who worked for the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad but made little money, and the story that eventually accompanied any DeNaples biography was that he and his siblings were so poor they received the same sled each year for Christmas while wearing rags on their feet instead of shoes, to the amusement of other children. With no more than an eighth-grade education, DeNaples eventually opened his first junkyard in the 1960s.

As his business grew, DeNaples began to make political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans. By 1969, DeNaples branched out and opened his first landfill in Dunmore after winning the city of Scranton’s garbage contract. In 1972, he was named a director of the First National Community Bank, and between his many businesses, DeNaples saw his wealth and stature gradually grow, and some speculated his success was due in part to his relationship with Russell Bufalino.

It was common knowledge that no one could operate anywhere in the region as DeNaples had without Bufalino’s blessing, or his cooperation. According to the Pennsylvania Crime Commission, one of Bufalino’s top lieutenants, Casper “Cappy” Giumento, was a regular visitor to DeNaples’ auto parts store and the landfill, and was believed to be serving as a go-between, passing messages between Bufalino and DeNaples.

A rising power within the state and local community, DeNaples ascent was derailed in 1977 when he was charged with falsifying documents to obtain more than $525,000 in federal reimbursements and was tried with three other men for falsely billing the federal government for cleanup work related to 1972’s Hurricane Agnes. DeNaples had rented equipment to Lackawanna County to help with cleanup from the damage caused by the devastating hurricane, and the county timekeeper, Louis Coviello Sr., fixed the books by crediting more work time for the equipment. The county investigated and found the discrepancies, and DeNaples, Coviello and two others were charged with fraud. DeNaples’ trial surprisingly ended in a hung jury, and several years later, Bufalino underboss James Osticco was convicted of bribing a juror and fixing the trial.

DeNaples had other secrets, and to prepare for his background investigation, he hired a team of consultants, several of whom had close and long-standing ties to Governor Rendell. Among them were Kevin Feeley, who was Rendell’s deputy mayor for communications during his tenure as Philadelphia’s mayor, from 1992 to 2000. Feeley was a pro at crisis management, and given the potential pitfalls ahead for DeNaples, Feeley was the perfect choice to serve as a strategist and spokesman for DeNaples, especially when it would come time to publicly explain a recent episode in DeNaples’ past known as the “exploding Katrina Trucks.”

* * *

THE FREIGHTLINER COLUMBIA
tractor truck looked brand new. It had little mileage, was clean in and out and the engine purred. It also came with a clean title and full warranty and a price of $75,000, which was far below the $125,000 someone would usually pay for a similar truck. The reason for the discount, said the salesman, was that the truck had been in water, but not to worry because the water reached only halfway up the tires and never touched the engine.

Richard Rothstein thought he found a bargain he couldn’t pass up, so in December 2005, he wrote a check to DeNaples Auto Sales, and for the next three months, he drove his new truck up and down I-81. Within weeks of his purchase, Rothstein developed a nasty cough that just wouldn’t quit. So he hired a driver to work his route and then went to Florida to convalesce for a month or so.

But one cold night in March 2006 as the truck was heading north on I-81 with a new load, the engine burst into flames. The driver escaped injury, and the truck was taken to a local repair shop. Rothstein quickly returned home, but when he arrived at the auto shop, he was told that the “full warranty” he was given by DeNaples Auto Sales had been voided some six months earlier. The repair shop had some other news for Rothstein. When they removed the dashboard, mechanics found dead salamanders encased in dried mud, and there was mold throughout the cabin. The truck, said the mechanics, had been underwater.

Irate, Rothstein called DeNaples Auto Sales, which agreed to buy the truck back for $68,000. But Rothstein was still perturbed, and he called the truck’s manufacturer, Freightliner, to inquire about the truck and its history. Freightliner said the warranty had been voided in 2005 because the truck was one of thirty that had been parked in New Orleans and completely submerged by seawater when Hurricane Katrina struck. The trucks had been leased by Air Products and Chemicals of Trexlertown, Pennsylvania, and were at an Air Products facility when the hurricane hit and the levees subsequently broke, with the rushing water filling the Air Products lot with a toxic, oily paste.

Rothstein spoke to the chief mechanic at Air Products, who told him he had circled around the submerged trucks in a rowboat. The leasing company, LeasePlan USA, asked Air Products to help find someone who would buy the trucks at salvage, and one of those contacted was Louis DeNaples, who offered $180,000 for the thirty trucks, or $6,000 each. The check was originally written from DeNaples’ Keystone Landfill Inc., but it was not accepted because LeasePlan required a check from a certified auto dealer. So the check was instead cut by DeNaples Auto Sales, with the paperwork clearly indicating that the trucks were water damaged and sold as salvage.

Designated a “flood vehicle,” the truck was, by law, a salvage vehicle since it was submerged to the extent that vital parts such as the engine and transmission were exposed to water and damaged. Because a flood vehicle is not deemed operable, the insurance company settles the claim, and the trucks are sold at a discount.

Across the United States, flooded trucks and autos are part of a regular trade where, following natural disasters, they are brought to different states, cleaned up and sold to unsuspecting buyers. Because the engines and transmissions were under water, the vehicles often develop electrical problems and, as Rothstein’s truck did, catch fire. The trick for a seller is getting a clear title from the state Department of Transportation. By not disclosing the damage, the sellers are committing a crime called “title washing,” which is a felony. Somehow, DeNaples was able to register his trucks with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation with clean titles, as if they were never destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. In Pennsylvania, a damaged or salvaged vehicle requires a
W
on its state title. But that wasn’t the case with the Rothstein truck. Instead, the truck was put on the lot with a $75,000 price tag and advertised with a full warranty, which for the unsuspecting buyer had already been voided by Freightliner.

By the summer of 2006, Rothstein was still coughing and suffering from lung problems. Convinced he was sickened by the mold in the truck, he decided to share his story with investigators with the gaming board’s Bureau of Investigations and Enforcement (BIE).

The FBI was also interested. Rothstein had originally contacted the Scranton office, but for some reason, the case was referred to the U.S. attorney in Binghamton, New York, about ninety miles north. After making several inquiries, prosecutors in Binghamton decided that titling was a state issue and referred the case back to Pennsylvania and to the state police.

When Ralph Periandi first heard the news about the Katrina flood trucks, he was floored. It had been eighteen months since his visit with the FBI in Philadelphia, and his “Black Ops” team had come up with information on DeNaples that was long on history but short on substance. The Katrina trucks solved that issue. Around the same time the Katrina truck incident fell into his lap, the police were pointed to two other DeNaples-related cases.

Agents from the gaming board’s own BIE learned that DeNaples had been caught on an FBI wiretap talking to Shamsud-din Ali, a Philadelphia Imam who was under investigation for racketeering and defrauding the city of Philadelphia (he was later convicted and sent to prison).

Tensions between the state police and BIE continued to fester while Rendell sought to legitimize the gaming board’s investigators within law enforcement circles. The legislature approved several laws that allowed BIE to share criminal background information, but none were recognized by either the police, attorney general, FBI or any other law enforcement agency. Periandi explained the police position in nearly a dozen letters to Tad Decker and to other gaming board members, but to no avail, as they demanded that the police cooperate. So the BIE referral was a sort of peace offering.

DeNaples was not the target of the Ali investigation, but he was notified by the FBI that he was inadvertently captured on the phone in a conversation recorded in July 2002. Others heard during the conversation were Jamie Brazil, a local Scranton political operative with deep ties that had stretched to the Clinton White House—he was a cousin of Hillary Clinton. The conversation with Ali centered on several matters, from DeNaples getting a plum parking spot for one of his daughters, who was about to attend college in Philadelphia, to transporting hazardous waste to his landfill.

Despite their cold relationship, BIE nevertheless alerted the state police to the wiretap, and the police in turn got a copy from the FBI. DeNaples could be heard clearly talking to Ali, Brazil and DeNaples’ assistant Betty Kakareka.

“Good morning. How you doing?” said Ali.

“Good morning. He is on the phone. I don’t know if you can hold for a minute. I will try to get him off,” said Kakareka.

“Yeah, we’ll hold, cause it’s good news,” said Brazil.

“Okay, I did tell him you were going to call. I figured you’d be calling back. Hold on please.”

“Hello?”

“Louis, this is Imam and Jamie Brazil on the line.”

“Imam and Jamie, how are you?”

“Very good,” said Ali. “It’s good to talk to you again.”

“It’s good to talk to you. How’s the family?”

“Everybody’s good. How’s everyone in your family?”

“Thank God, they’re good.”

“The Imam’s got some good news for you, Louis,” said Brazil.

“Anyway, we took care of that thing down at the university,” said Ali.

The “thing” was a parking space for DeNaples’ daughter, who was planning to attend Temple University. The conversation moved to something more important to prosecutors. Once DeNaples was assured the parking spot was secured, the conversation moved to an urgent business matter involving the removal of hazardous debris from Philadelphia.

“Louis I want to ask you a question,” said Brazil. “The Imam and I got a call about—and I don’t know if it’s a bogus call, or what’s up with it—getting rid of all the debris from the homes they’re tearing down in Philadelphia and nobody’s accepting it. And I said you got to be kidding. Like no landfills—nobody’s accepting this stuff?”