D.A.: Priest lied in casino probe

HARRISBURG - As lucky charms go, the Rev. Joe Sica had a good run for his childhood chum, Louis DeNaples, the Scranton-area casino owner now under investigation by a grand jury here.

That luck ran out yesterday when the 52-year-old Catholic priest was accused of lying to the grand jury in August about his relationship with the late Russell Bufalino, one-time leader of the mob in Northeast Pennsylvania.

Sica told the grand jurors he had not had a personal relationship with the legendary organized-crime figure, but prosecutors say that they have letters and photographs that prove otherwise.

Indeed, lying is at the heart of the Dauphin County District Attorney's Office's broader probe. It also suspects that DeNaples - owner of the casino at the former Mount Airy Lodge - lied under oath to the state Gaming Control Board in 2005 about long-rumored ties to organized crime, according to state Supreme Court legal filings unsealed last month.

Francis Chardo, Dauphin County's first assistant district attorney, told a judge that a state trooper who arrested Sica yesterday morning overheard a cell-phone conversation the priest had during the drive to Harrisburg.

Chardo said Sica had called DeNaples and received these instructions: "Don't say anything. We'll take care of this."

But Sica didn't stay quiet.

Instead, Chardo said, he warned the trooper that he has been working with someone in the security office of the Mount Airy Casino Resort, which DeNaples opened in October. Sica said they were compiling embarrassing information about the trooper to be released publicly.

"It's not something one would expect from a priest," Chardo told the judge while discussing bail for Sica.

Sica was full of surprises - he was carrying $1,000 in cash when arrested outside the Scranton parish rectory where he lives. And Chardo learned something else about the priest, who works as a chaplain for Mercy Hospital in Scranton.

"He owns a gun, which struck me as odd," Chardo told the judge, later adding that Sica bought the handgun last year.

Judge Todd Hoover, while voicing concern about the gun and threats, decided that Sica wasn't a danger to the community. He set bail at $20,000 but let Sica go without having to post any money.

Sica, who arrived in court wearing a black priest's shirt with white collar and in handcuffs, was hustled from the building by one of his attorneys as reporters and photographers pursued him. He looked straight ahead and did not respond to questions.

It was a remarkable fall for a priest described by DeNaples spokesman Kevin Feeley last year as a "talisman" who had brought good luck to his childhood friend's goal of opening a casino in Mount Pocono.

Sica attended a Gaming Control Board meeting with DeNaples in August, just three weeks before the priest's grand-jury testimony. DeNaples told the board that day that he wanted to "thank God for giving the strength, determination and perseverance during the many adversities and obstacles throughout the licensing process."

The Diocese of Scranton yesterday issued a statement, calling Sica's arrest "deeply distressing" but noting that it had nothing to do with church business.

"Father Sica has requested and been granted a leave of absence from his position at Mercy Hospital, and he will not celebrate Mass publicly while he attends to his legal issues," the diocese said.

Feeley yesterday again asserted that DeNaples had no ties to organized crime. Feeley would not comment when told that Sica had called DeNaples after being arrested. He also didn't want to talk about Sica's alleged warning to the trooper that Mount Airy's security office was gathering information about investigators. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a comment," Feeley said. "I've never heard of any sort of thing."

Chardo said that the penalty for perjury is up to seven years in prison and up to a $15,000 fine. He said that the charges against the priest show that no man is above the law.

"As a Catholic, I can tell you that it's not something I did lightly," Chardo said. "We followed the evidence where it led us."

In a grand-jury presentment submitted Friday and unsealed yesterday, Sica is accused of lying during his Aug. 29 testimony.

Sica testified that he had met Bufalino by chance in a hospital while he was a deacon training to become a priest. He repeatedly denied having a "personal relationship" with Bufalino.

But investigators found letters and pictures that show a close relationship between the priest and the mob boss, including an urgent plea sent by Sica to the wife of then-Gov. Richard Thornburgh in 1982 asking for help getting Bufalino out of prison.

Sica, in that letter to Ginny Thornburgh, accused the federal government of setting up Bufalino on charges of trying to have a witness in a criminal case killed.

"It is a conspiracy against a man who has lived a life of honesty, generosity, justice and a belief in the American system," Sica wrote on stationery from a Williamsport parish, where he was the assistant pastor.

Investigators also discovered that Sica had sent a copy of the letter to Bufalino, along with a note pledging: "I will not give up, because I want you to have peace and freedom along with justice, all of which you deserve."

The presentment said that investigators turned up photos of Bufalino at a party for Sica's ordination as a priest and other pictures of them at other social gatherings.

The grand-jury presentment said it was investigating whether DeNaples lied under oath about connections to organized crime.

"Because of the length and closeness of their friendship, Father Sica's relationship to known criminals was material to whether DeNaples had a relationship with the same known criminals," the presentment said.

The presentment also seems to suggest that William D'Elia, reputed mob boss in the Scranton area, had cooperated with the investigation. D'Elia was a a one-time driver for Bufalino.

"D'Elia was aware of a relationship between Sica and Bufalino," the presentment said. "This relationship was far beyond the one described by Sica in his grand jury testimony."

Chardo yesterday declined to comment when asked if D'Elia was cooperating in the investigation.

D'Elia, who testified to the grand jury in July, has been in federal custody since 2005, accused of laundering drug money and conspiring to have two witnesses in that case murdered. *