Table games bill, PSU’s funding still stuck
By MARC LEVY
Associated Press Writer
More than s7oomillion in taxpayer
dollars slated for Penn State
and several other Pennsylvania
universities remains in limbo.
Top state legislators met Monday
without reaching an agreement on
how to expand the state’s casino
gambling that Gov. Ed Rendell
said is necessary to complete the
state’s budget and raise enough
revenue to cover universities the
next two years.
The legislators’ meeting was their
first since Oct. 9, when Rendell
signed the key bills necessary to
end Pennsylvania’s three-month
old budget impasse.
Legalizing table games and
Fumo friend admits
fraud in S2B7K Pa.
By Mary-Claire Dale
Associated Press Writer
A friend of imprisoned former
state Sen. Vincent Fumo admitted
Tuesday that the powerful
lawmaker steered him nearly
$290,000 in state funds through
phony senate contracts.
In a conditional plea, S. Michael
Palermo said he conspired with
Fumo to commit mail fraud.
Palermo, 69, of Philadelphia
was a close friend and top Senate
aide who helped run Fumo’s farm
near Harrisburg and did myriad
other personal favors for the
Philadelphia Democrat.
Fumo is serving a 55-month
sentence for defrauding the
Senate and two nonprofits of
several million dollars. Jurors
in March found he used their
staff and resources to perpetuate
a lavish lifestyle that featured
four homes, three drivers, round
the-clock assistants and other
luxuries.
Palermo would get five years’
probation under die negotiated
plea agreement, which U.S.
District Judge Stewart Dalzell
must approve before the Jan. 22
sentencing.
Prosecutors say there’s no
evidencePalermodidanyworkfor
the $l5O-an-hour transportation
consulting contracts. Instead,
Fumo had several other people
releasing money to the schools
are the only unfinished parts of
the $27.8 billion budget package,
but a major sticking point for
legislators is deciding how high
to set the state’s tax rate on table
game winnings.
Rendell told legislators before
they met that he will veto a bill
that will not produce at least $2OO
million this year from the taxes
and fees state government would
get by adding table games to the
state’s slot-machine casinos.
“Look, we waited 101 days to
get a budget that met my two
markers that I put down,” Rendell
told reporters. “And one of those
markers was that it would have
enough revenue to balance this
year and enough revenue to
balance next year and I am deadly
in earnest about that.”
contracts
in Harrisburg working
transportation analysts.
“In essence, they did the job that
this contract said Mr. Palermo
was going to do,” Assistant U.S.
Attorney Robert Zauzmer said.
Palermo maintains he did some
work but nothing close to the
2,000 hours over five years for
which he was paid.
Defense lawyer Robert Scandone
declined to comment after the
hearing.
Palermo once served as chief
of staff at Fumo’s district
office in Philadelphia. Fumo
awarded him Senate Democratic
Appropriations Committee
contracts from 1999 to 2004
that netted Palermo $45,000 to
$66,000 a year.
Fumo was convicted of fraud
for the Palermo contracts and
will pay most of the $287,000
in related restitution. Palermo,
charged six months after Fumo’s
conviction, would pay the
remaining $50,000.
Palermo is only the latest Fumo
associate charged in the case.
Longtime aide Ruth Amao was
convicted at trial with Fumo and
is serving a one-year prison term,
while two computer technicians
pleaded guilty before trial to
destroying e-mail evidence.
Amao’s husband, a former
state turnpike commissioner,
remains under FBI investigation
for $150,000 in alleged no-work
contracts awarded by Fumo.
THE CAPITAL TIMES
Legislators met for more than
an hour in Rendell’s offices, but
emerged with little to report.
“It was good that we had a
meeting, (but) there was no real
breakthrough or resolution, and
we’re certainly going to need at
least another meeting and probably
several to reach resolution,” said
Senate Majority Leader Dominic
Pileggi, R-Delaware.
Many seemed ready to agree to
a license fee of $l5 million from
each slot-machine casino wanting
to operate table games. The state’s
miniature “resort” casinos would
have to pay $7.5 million.
However, legislators disagree
on other aspects of table games,
beginning with the state’s tax rate
on winnings and the question of
whether to set aside a portion of
the tax revenue for the counties
Man wanted in Europe found
working at Neb. prison
By NATE JENKINS
Associated Press Writer
A simple Google search of
Michal Preclik’s name turns up
an Interpol wanted poster from his
native Czech Republic. So where
was he arrested? In Nebraska’s
maximum-security prison, where
he was not an inmate, but a guard.
Preclik had worked at the prison
for a year and his arrest came
just two months after officials
at Tecumseh State Correctional
Institution promoted the 32-year
old to corporal. Prison officials
learned last month that he was
wanted on suspicion of drug and
fraud crimes.
“This is just unbelievable that
the state of Nebraska is hiring
international criminals,” said
state Sen. Heath Mello of Omaha.
“Who’s minding the store?”
The Department of Correctional
Services is reviewing its hiring
practices, spokeswoman Dawn
Renee Smith said.
“Obviously, it’s a concern
whenever we have anyone
working at the facility ... who has
any type of outstanding warrants,”
Smith said.
The situation is reminiscent of a
2005 incidentthal led to aNebraska
Department of Health and Human
Services policy that Google
searches of job candidates be
conducted. The department offered
a job to Wayne Richard McGuire,
October 21
and municipalities that host the
casmos.
House Democrats also want to
remove limitations on the resort
casinos that prevent them from
rivaling Pennsylvania’s nine larger
casinos, a provision opposed by
Senate Republicans.
One resort casino is licensed, but
it is not yet operating while the
state Supreme Court considers a
legal challenge by the owners of
Philadelphia Park Casino. Two
applications for a second resort
casino, license are pending with
state regulators.
Rendell said the tax rate must be
at least 16 percent to yield, along
with file license fees, at least $2OO
million. But he cautioned against
setting a rate so high it might “kill
the golden goose.” He also warned
that legislators must prevent the
but rescinded the offer after The
Associated Press reported that he
had been convicted in absentia in
Rwanda of the 1985 murder of
Dian Fossey, whose research was
the subject of the movie “Gorillas
in the Mist.”
Preclik (pronounced PRESS’-lik)
wound up in Nebraska in 2002
when he got a job at a hog farm
through a company that recruited
Eastern Europeans as laborers in
violation of their tourist visas. The
hog farm is about 30 miles from
the Tecumseh prison.
Preclik later testified against Milan-
Matousek, who was convicted of
transporting and harboring illegal
immigrants while helping the
company. Preclik was granted
legal residency in return for his
help in the prosecution, said his
wife, Kari Preclik, an American he
married in 2005.
She said the drug and fraud
accusations stem from another
prosecution he assisted with in the
Czech Republic. He had become
ensnared with organized crime
while buying and selling cars and
was kidnapped, she said. While
testifying in that case, he was
accused of giving members of the
group drugs, she said.
But she had no idea of an
outstanding warrant.
Interpol, which fosters pqlice
cooperation across the borders
of 188 countries, and the U.S.
Marshals service didn’t release any
information about the accusations
casinos from removing existing
slot machines and endangering
a key revenue source for public
schools.
Until a table games bill is passed,
Rendell said he will hold up $730
million in discretionary funding for
universities and other institutions.
Penn State is suffering the biggest
budget hole, waiting on roughly
$334 million from the state, or 9
percent of its budget.
Temple is supposed to receive
about $173 million; Pitt about
$l6B million; and Lincoln roughly
$l4 million.
Another $34.5 million is set
aside for the University of
Pennsylvania. Much of that money
is for the university’s School of
Veterinary Medicine, a key link
in Pennsylvania’s agriculture and
food safety network.
against Michal Preclik.
“I was shocked when I found
out,” said Patrick Barker, an
officer at the prison who worked
with Preclik. “Here we have a guy
facing drug and fraud charges and
we’re dealing with contraband
issues at the prison.”
Smith said she wasn’t aware of
any internal investigations because
of Preclik’s situation.
The Corrections Depai iment did
a background check on Preclik
before hiring him, like it does on
all potential hires, she said. But
a national database that includes
criminal records and warrants, file
National Criminal Information
Center, did not reveal any warrants
for his arrest, Smith said.
However, a second background
check was done Oct. 21, 2008, a
week after Preclik started working
at the prison and more than a
month after Interpol listed him as
wanted.
“No warrant showed up at that
time either,” Smith said.
There is often a lag between the
time Interpol lists someone as
wanted and when an arrest warrant
is issued in the country where the
person is residing.
Preclik was arrested by
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement on Sept. 8 and has a
Nov. 9 hearing to determine if he
can be released on bond. He has
asked that the decision to send
him back to the Czech Republic
be reviewed.