http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22477491/
Pa. priest charged with lying about mob ties
Charges center on priest’s grand jury testimony on mobster
relationship
updated 6:45 p.m. ET Jan. 2, 2008
HARRISBURG, Pa. - {AP} A Roman Catholic priest was arrested on perjury
charges Wednesday, accused of lying about his relationship with a
mobster in testimony to a grand jury investigating a casino owner's
possible ties to organized crime.
The Rev. Joseph Sica was arrested outside his home in Scranton. He is
an adviser to Mount Airy Casino Resort owner Louis DeNaples, who is
the subject of the grand jury investigation.
Sica's arrest is the first to result from the Dauphin County 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.
Story continues below ?
Sica was accused of lying to the grand jury last August about his
relationship with the late Russell Bufalino, an organized crime boss
who served lengthy prison terms in the 1970s and '80s, according to
grand jury findings cited in court papers.
Photographs questioned
The papers said Sica falsely told the grand jury that he had met
Bufalino only by chance and had no relationship with him.
Prosecutors said the finding was based partly on a photograph that
showed the priest arm-in-arm with Bufalino and another photo of him
with William D'Elia of Hughestown, who reputedly heads the Bufalino
crime family now.
Also, in a 1982 letter to Ginny Thornburgh, the wife of then-Gov. *****
Thornburgh, Sica referred to Bufalino as "his friend" and asked her to
help free Bufalino, whom he called an innocent man, prosecutors said.
Sica was scheduled to be arraigned later Wednesday before Dauphin
County Judge Todd A. Hoover, who is overseeing the grand jury
investigation.
.
|
