The Quiet Don: The Untold Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino

by Birkbeck, Matt

  Before the troopers left the prison, Coviello pulled out several letters he had written over the past year or so to the state gaming board and to Greg Matzel, the co-owner of Pocono Manor who lost his bid to DeNaples for a slots license.

  “You can use these. You can see the gaming board knew what it was dealing with,” Coviello said.

  The troopers took the letters and read them with great interest.

  December 26, 2006

  Dear Mr. Matzel,

  I don’t have time for chit chat so I’m going to be blunt. Do what you think is best.

  I watched the hearings with interest. Since your lawyers wrote me on September 8th I have had 3 interviews with the Gaming Control Board and the State Police who work with the Gaming Control Board.

  First off lets not pretend to fool each other. I knew you would have to send my letter to the Gaming Control Board. I did what I did for me and I used you and you used me. In here, a fair exchange is no robbery.

  Listen to me, last Tuesday, the day before the hearings I was interviewed again and I was shocked to see that Louie still got the votes. Did you listen closely to Tad Decker’s words of, those who receive licenses will still be investigated. I knew the first delay was due to me and I knew Tads words of caution are due to what’s going on.

  If you can appeal this decision appeal it. I was read parts of Louie’s interview, he lied, he said he hardly knew me or my father.

  In late 69 or 70 Louie had the Scranton Garbage Contract. There was a strike and SCAB workers were hired. My father was the Superintendent for Louie. My picture was in the Scranton Times under the title; Child Labor. I was like 13. How do you deny that. His brother was my best man at my wedding. Louie’s whole family attended my wedding. My son and father in law either work for him now or did in the past. I slept in this guys house a whole summer when my parents were getting a divorce.

  I drove his brothers corvette my senior year in high school.

  Are these lies PERJURY?? Did you see his daughter Lisa, I use to baby sit for his kids.

  The last words these cops told me was they’ll be back.

  You did not get a fair shake. I watched both your presentation and Louie’s. I need you to push this. I’m not waiting for a reply either.

  I have 2 more ACES to play. Send me an investigator if need be. Can you get a copy of his interview. You should have heard him blow up when incidents from the past were thrown at him.

  You are the only one I don’t suspect of taking a suit case full of money. I just had a visit today and the people who visited me were not contacted by the investigators and they told me last week they were seeing them on Thursday.

  You are not getting a fair shake and if you don’t step up to the plate you won’t get your bats.

  Listen to this, Attorney Cognetti was the prosecutor who prosecuted Louie, my father and myself. He begged me to give Louie up and my chargers would be dropped, now he works for him. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to add this up.

  I apologize for any typos but I am rushed for time tonight.

  Good Luck,

  Louis Coviello EA6952

  -

  April 11, 2007

  Mr. Matzel,

  Its 4 in the morning and if I don’t get this out now it might not go for a few days. I know, you sent my last letter to the Gaming Control Board and they told me not to write you anymore. I guess if I followed rules I would have never spent 15 years in solitary confinement these past 29 years.

  I’m sending this letter certified mail. Its a waste of money but I will know you received it. Did you know I sent Louie a certified letter just like this last summer. Yes sir, and he never told the Gaming Control Board about it. And I sent them a copy of the letter and the green card. Did you also know I have been interviewed 7 times. I was interviewed the day before the hearings. As I was interviewed they were on the phone with a field agent as they showed me photos. I had a visit a few weeks ago and they verified past crimes. In fact they dug so far they showed me something I forgot about. This was a law suit that involved my father and Louis. This is the same Louie who for 84 pages denied hardly knowing me or my father. If you could get your hands on these 84 pages you could prove perjury. And its public information. Go to the courthouse, library and Scranton Times. The cops have it, they know.

  So here’s what I am thinking. The field agents are being over ruled by their superiors. That is, their being told to let it go. No doubt politicians are pushing to drop this.

  I’m sure you were either watching the hearings or there when Louis presented his case. I’m sure you saw little Lisa. I use to baby sit for her. Her brother Doctor DeNaples just sent me a message that he wants to see me. He was my favorite. He never missed one of my games. His Uncle Eugene DeNaples is my son’s God Father and my best man at my wedding. The cops know all this. I’m sure the church has records. February 5th of 1976. St. Anthony’s church in Dunmore.

  So tell me, how is it possible that Louie remembers seeing me around town. His exact words that were read to me where, “yeah, he was a kid from the neighborhood, he played football, he went to Texas A&M. I didn’t really know him. And his father drove truck for me once in awhile. I think Louis is still in prison isn’t he.”

  He didn’t mention the certified letter I sent him nor the times in the past 29 years when I wrote him.

  I hope you are getting the message. I read where you hired a lawyer in Pittsburgh. Your money would be better spent by sending me an investigator that could follow a map and give you concrete evidence. Then you could take this to the board and cry bloody murder.

  I wasn’t given the polygraph test and I know why. Then there would be more evidence that what I said is true. They told me, they knew I’m not lying so there is no need to give me one. In fact they told me when this process first started my credibility was like whale shit but its rising. The cops are amazed at my memory.

  Louie knows I write you. I sent him a few letters since June. I told him to get my fucken money. Why didn’t he report me. If someone tries to extort you wouldn’t you call the cops? You wouldn’t if you didn’t want the information made public. And that’s going to be my last resort. I’m going to tell you what to do. Before you send this to the Gaming Control Board. Go down the Scranton Times and Scranton Tribune Office and get a copy of every article on Louie. They have 6 folders of them. And in them articles is evidence that Louie lied when the board questioned him. Go back to 1968. Get the articles on the Scranton Garbage Strike. He had a contract with the city. My father was the Superintendent. Louie forgot about this.

  I was in the paper as child labor when the strike was going on.

  Excuse my typo. I need to know if you put me in your appeal. I don’t care if you do, I just need to know.

  Enclosed is a good book.

  Respectfully,

  Louis Coviello EA6952

  -

  May 2, 2007

  Mr. Matzel,

  I sent you a certified letter on April 11th. The postal service is tracing it now since I never received the green card back. I hope you received it. I have a rough draft of what I wrote. The gist of it is, you need to read the 84 pages that were read to me. It was an interview with Louie about my father and me. He lied many times and they know he committed perjury.

  I sent a copy to the street and I will have it sent to you. I have been interviewed 7 times so far. They have tracked down people and verified past crimes.

  I think the field agents are being over ruled by their superiors. Their being told to let it go.

  If I can’t get a certified letter to you then I’m not sure this will reach you. The bottom line is I told you in this certified letter how you can prove he perjured himself. Its public record. Get those transcripts of those closed door meetings.

  Louie said he really didn’t know me or my father. My father and Louie where co-defendants in a law
suit in 1969, Louie’s brother Eugene was my best man and my son’s Godfather. My father was also the superintendent of the garbage workers when Louie had the Scranton garbage contract in 1969. This was before the Flood trial.

  I read where you hired a lawyer in Pittsburgh. Your money would be better spent by sending me an investigator.

  I was interviewed the day before the vote. I knew what Tad Decker meant when he said, all law enforcement agencies have been contacted. We both knew the deck is stacked against you.

  If you didn’t receive a certified letter how will you receive this. I’m tired of wasting my time. You think their going to hand you a Gaming License when every political figure that could be bribed was bribed.

  Louie never reported the certified letters I sent him and the Gaming Board had a copy of the letters and green card.

  Everybody knew Louie was getting the license except you.

  Louis Coviello EA6952

  * * *

  TWO DAYS AFTER Billy D’Elia testified before the grand jury in Harrisburg, Tad Decker announced at a press conference that he was resigning as chairman of the state Gaming Control Board.

  Decker had presided over the creation of what was envisioned as a multibillion dollar industry in Pennsylvania. He had steered the gaming initiative from its infancy to the licensing of nearly a dozen casinos. But now, amid a criminal probe of DeNaples and questions surrounding how he was awarded his license, Decker said it was time for him to step down. His new destination, he said, would be his old law firm Cozen O’Conner, the Philadelphia powerhouse that counted among its dozens of well-heeled clients one Louis DeNaples.

  During his press conference in Harrisburg, Decker deflected any criticism of the DeNaples gaming license, saying the state police had signed off his application. His comments appeared in newspapers across the state the next morning, and among those who read the stories was Ralph Periandi.

  Retired only five months, Periandi was stunned by Decker’s comments. There was no way Periandi could allow those statements to stand without a response. So the next day Periandi was quoted in the Allentown Morning Call saying the gaming board had all it needed to deny the DeNaples license and that no matter what the police did, it was clear the DeNaples license was predetermined.

  “My recommendation was to table this decision in granting a license. I couldn’t tell the board the reason why, but we had a situation where we had an [investigation] that was running its course and we were not in a position to let anybody know. The gaming board had timelines, and we were taking second place to a licensing decision,” Periandi said.

  Periandi had been waiting two years to unleash his frustrations, and he zeroed in on Decker and the gaming board, saying, “It seems to me they weren’t concerned about getting the fullest information possible on some of these people.”

  Decker’s response in the same article was typical Decker bravado.

  “A flat-out lie and figment of his imagination,” said Decker of Periandi.

  The state police, in an official statement, supported Periandi, saying the information concerning DeNaples was withheld from the gaming board, and the board knew it. Periandi’s comments were followed by several other stunning revelations, including a report of an ongoing federal probe involving DeNaples and Ed Rendell centering on questionable contributions prior to gaining his slots license.

  The Morning Call reported on a probe that centered on whether DeNaples had contributed $150,000 to Rendell just prior to gaining a slots license. In addition, several people closely associated with DeNaples gave more than $400,000 to Rendell. Among them was Thomas Karam, an energy executive with ties to DeNaples through a controversial company called Theta Land Corporation. Karam’s business was natural gas, and the Wyoming Valley was part of the vast Marcellus Shale natural gas reserve, the largest reserve of natural gas in the country, which stretched from New York State through Pennsylvania into Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.

  Karam’s prior contributions to Rendell never exceeded $5,000, yet somehow he came up with $150,000, and investigators were probing whether the money was funneled from DeNaples to Rendell through Karam.

  Before the grand jury would convene again, in late August, there was yet another stunning revelation. On August 22, 2007, the Morning Call reported that Thomas Marino, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District, which included Scranton and Harrisburg, had been recused from a federal probe of DeNaples because Department of Justice officials learned that Marino had given a personal reference to DeNaples for his slots application.

  A few days later, the newspaper reported that Marino would resign. Even the most jaded followers of the DeNaples saga could not comprehend how a sitting U.S. attorney would, in good conscience, feel compelled to provide a recommendation for a convicted felon and a man with alleged ties to organized crime.

  Marino’s referral was discovered by members of his staff, who immediately reported Marino to Department of Justice officials in Washington, D.C. The DeNaples probe, which also included the Katrina trucks investigation, was transferred to the U.S. attorney in Binghamton, New York.

  Marino, who was nominated by U.S. Senator Arlen Specter in 2002, denied he was resigning and would only say that DeNaples was an old friend and he would do the same thing again if asked. Six weeks later, Marino stepped down. He soon landed another job, hired by DeNaples for $250,000 a year as an in-house attorney for the Mount Airy Casino Resort.

  Around the same time in Harrisburg, a Catholic priest was being led to the back door of the Dauphin County courthouse. The Rev. Joseph Sica had for the length of the gaming-application process provided an almost comical sight standing or sitting at DeNaples’ side. Assigned by the Diocese of Scranton to serve as the chaplain of Mercy Hospital, Sica instead could be found with DeNaples during nearly every public appearance before the gaming board. Sica would be there supposedly as a spiritual advisor, but, to most observers, he was more of a “bodyguard,” running interference for DeNaples and stepping between him and the media. It was the oddest of sights, a burly Catholic priest acting as a tough guy.

  Sica spent the morning before the grand jury and was represented by attorney Sal Cognetti, who happened to be the former U.S. attorney who prosecuted DeNaples in 1977. Others who testified before the grand jury included James Decker, a former Lackawanna County official who was charged with DeNaples in the 1977 case; Sam Stratton Jr., an assistant business manager and the president of Laborers’ Union Local 332 in Philadelphia; and Frank Pavlico, a Scranton-area man who was a close confidant of Billy D’Elia. Pavlico had been charged in the conspiracy case against D’Elia, who would later learn that it was Pavlico who agreed to wear a wire, which recorded D’Elia making a number of incriminating statements.

  Although most grand juries operated in secret, Dauphin County authorities had witnesses assemble in a third-floor room that was easily accessible by reporters, who hovered in the hallways. In addition, the district attorney’s website posted the dates when the grand jury would convene, alerting everyone, including the press. Reporters also had help identifying witnesses when Rich Weinstock called out their names to testify.

  Unbeknownst to the media and others who had gathered on the third floor, several other witnesses, including former Philadelphia mayor John Street, were brought into the building via a back entrance and through the district attorney’s office to a private entrance inside the grand jury room.

  The grand jury would meet again in late September, after which the state Supreme Court once again stayed the case after DeNaples’ attorneys had filed motions with the court seeking to quash the subpoenas and stop the probe.

  The request was unusual, but the court ordered a halt pending its review. The court’s order was fortuitous for DeNaples. His Mount Airy Casino Resort was scheduled to open in October, and had he been indicted, there was no telling if the gaming board would have allowed the facility to open its doors. Instead, thanks t
o the Supreme Court, the opening took place as planned. DeNaples, as expected, was greeted warmly. He said a few words, shook a few hands and then quickly left.

  It took the court three months before denying the DeNaples motions and allowing the probe to continue. On December 27, 2007, the grand jury convened for a final time, and among those who testified was DeNaples’ younger brother Eugene, who arrived with his attorney, J. Alan Johnson, of Pittsburgh, another former U.S. attorney from the Western District of Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh.

  Three former U.S. attorneys had been hired or enlisted on behalf of DeNaples or a family member to assist with the gaming license or the grand jury. In addition to representing Eugene DeNaples, Johnson testified on behalf of Louis DeNaples to debunk the 2001 federal affidavit linking DeNaples to Billy D’Elia. Peter Vaira, a former U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, was hired by DeNaples to prepare his own background check for the gaming board. And, of course, there was Thomas Marino, who resigned after the Justice Department got word that Marino had provided a recommendation for DeNaples and testified before the gaming board on his behalf.

  Following his testimony, upon leaving the grand jury room, Eugene made a wrong turn and walked out into the elevator area, which was filled with reporters. He quickly ducked into an elevator with Johnson, who said the younger DeNaples had no comment.

  Eugene DeNaples was the final witness. And now it was up to the grand jury to decide his brother Louis’ fate.

  THIRTEEN

  Jimmy Hoffa’s official release from prison was on December 23, 1971, just in time for Christmas.

  He had spent nearly five years inside the Lewisburg prison, and by all accounts, he had been a model prisoner before his thirteen-year sentence was commuted by President Nixon on humanitarian grounds so he could care for his wife, who had suffered a heart attack.