New Mob Bio Traces Probe of PA Gaming Industry
Michael Rubinkam
Associated Press
September 3, 2013
Pennsylvania state police ran a top-secret investigation into whether then-Gov. Ed Rendell and his administration rigged the outcome of the casino licensing process to benefit favored applicants, including a wealthy and politically connected businessman suspected of having mob ties, a new book asserts.
But the probe failed to lead to criminal charges against anyone in the administration or on the state gambling board, and prosecutors blamed the state Supreme Court for thwarting the investigation, according to “The Quiet Don,” a forthcoming book by Matt Birkbeck that also serves as the first full-length biography of reclusive northeastern Pennsylvania mob boss Russell Bufalino.
Birkbeck covered the troubled beginnings of Pennsylvania’s casino industry as a newspaper reporter, and here he pieces together the yearslong effort by state police and local prosecutors to probe whether corruption was involved in the awarding of the lucrative casino licenses.
The narrative emerges from interviews with dozens of participants, including now-retired Lt. Col. Ralph Periandi, the No. 2 official in the Pennsylvania State Police.
Periandi initiated the probe in 2005 because he suspected that “Rendell, members of his administration and others in state government might be trying to control the new gaming industry in Pennsylvania,” Birkbeck writes.
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