Posted: Monday, 23 February 2009 11:33AM
Anything Can Happen And It Usually Does
Steve Corbett Reporting
Monday, February 23, 2009
Like manna from heaven, Sandra Brulo’s arrest Friday came out of nowhere.
Federal agents descended on her Luzerne County office where she worked in a high-ranking probation department job, and before you could say penitentiary, she was standing in front of a federal magistrate.
Charged with tampering with an official document, the veteran social worker once headed up the county juvenile probation department. Now, she’s just another defendant caught up in the ongoing federal public corruption probe into the county courthouse.
So far, three defendants – including two former president judges - have pleaded guilty.
Brulo’s facing up to 20 years in prison. Let’s hope she knows something that can help the feds in their inquiry and maybe help reduce her sentence.
She can use reputed local Mafia don Billy D’Elia as a role model.
D’Elia cut a deal that he hopes will take time off his nine-year sentence.
Now, ex-con Bob Kulick - who once told me that he and D’Elia grew up together and saw each other regularly until D’Elia’s arrest – also is cooperating with federal authorities looking into life as we know it in hard coal country.
D’Elia helped feds with their recent case against Kulick in which he pleaded guilty to threatening an employee with a gun – a weapon he was banned from possessing because he was a convicted felon.
Kulick has been on the scene since the days of the late legendary corrupt Congressman Dan Flood, with whom Kulick was close. Kulick also figured into the federal case against former corrupt Luzerne County Judge Arthur D’Allesandro, with whom Kulick was close.
D’Elia also is helping the government in its case against Dunmore money man Louis DeNaples, who is facing a perjury rap and the loss of his casino license after being accused of lying to state gaming officials about his alleged ties to organized crime figures, including D’Elia.
D’Elia, a onetime driver and goon for legendary Mafia boss Russell Bufalino (whom author and former prosecutor Charlie Brandt accuses of putting the hit out on the late great labor leader Jimmy Hoffa), also is cooperating against DeNaples buddy and Scranton Roman Catholic priest Joe Sica.
Sica is also charged with lying under oath about his alleged links to organized crime, including D’Elia and Bufalino, whom during an interview with me on “Corbett” Sica admitted he knew.
Meanwhile, life goes on.
Sica is listed as the official tour guide on a Diocese of Scranton sea cruise to Europe in May.
And although DeNaples is forbidden from setting foot on casino property he owns – as well as having to step down as chairman of the board at the bank he controls – his case is tied up in the state Supreme Court.
Only D’Elia and Kulick are locked up – at least I hope they’re locked up. I don’t know how the feds treat cooperating witnesses. Maybe they have them on a bread and water diet. Or maybe they keep them talkative by housing them in a comfy condo somewhere.
Ciavarella and Conahan had a nice condo in Florida, according to the feds, through which they laundered proceeds from the kickback scheme that brought them $2.6 million in cash.
Now the condo is for sale.
Two current Luzerne County judges - including one who faces a retention election in November - have admitted that they spent some quality time at the condo as guests of the gangster judges.
I wonder who else spent time with the judges in Florida having fun in the sun?
Nowadays anything can happen, which is one reason why the feds asked that Brulo turn over the gun she kept in her home before releasing her on her own recognizance. Even in prison people need to be protected, sometimes against themselves but mostly from others.
Ciavarella and Conahan will not have a nice time behind bars. D’Elia has to be worried that some of his mob pals from Philly, New York and elsewhere do not like the idea that he’s now an official rat.
By the way, the ABC news program 20/20 will be shooting video of my show in the WILK News Radio studio on Thursday for a story they’re doing on the public corruption scandal.
They expect to be in town for a few days.
Maybe they ought to rent themselves a coal region condo.
This is only the beginning.
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