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By JIM VAN NOSTRAND; Times Leader Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 25, 1995     Page: 1A

HARRISBURG — When former District Justice Robert Chesna needed video poker
machines, state investigators say he looked to organized crime.
   
He got some machines from an unidentified man connected with the late
Russell Bufalino’s organized crime family, according to testimony Tuesday
before the state Court of Judicial Discipline.
    Chesna allegedly told a state agent that the company that usually provided
the machines for his back-room betting operation at his Hanover Township gas
station had pulled them out, citing the fear of an impending police raid.
   
The court is considering whether to bar Chesna, who resigned in 1992, from
ever again holding judicial office. It is not clear when a decision will come.
   
“Robert Chesna engaged in activities that put the legal profession into
disrepute,” said Vincent Quinn, chief counsel for the state Judicial Conduct
Board. “He was dealing with corrupt individuals … he was doing things that
judges shouldn’t do.”
   
Chesna didn’t attend the one-day trial Tuesday and could not be reached for
comment. He was represented by attorney Stephen Urbanski.
   
Quinn pounded a video poker machine confiscated from the station for
emphasis. He described Chesna as a man who flouted judicial rules of conduct
by knowingly running a criminal operation that took in $1,200 a week to put
his kids through college.
   
Chesna and his older brother, Alex, were originally charged with operating
illegal gambling devices and criminal conspiracy. But they entered the Luzerne
County Accelerated Rehabilitation Disposition Program in January 1992 and
received 23 months probation rather than stand trial. The program is usually
reserved for non-violent, first-time offenders and requires no admission of
guilt.
   
“We have no problem with the fact Mr. Chesna got ARD,” Quinn told the eight
judges on the court. “But the fact he got ARD shouldn’t control you … If it
looks like punishment, and it smells like punishment, (he) did something
wrong.
   
“It was a scheme to line his own pockets.”
   
Meeting followed raid,
   
state agent testifies
   
The state attorney general’s agents raided the gas station on Jan. 15,
1991, seizing 10 machines and records detailing gambling profits and payoffs.
The search was coordinated by Special Agent Barry Moran, the key witness at
Tuesday’s proceedings.
   
Chesna called Moran the day after the raid to ask for a private meeting,
the agent said. They and Deputy Attorneys General Kirk Weidemer and John
Burfette got together at a motel in the Poconos just outside the Luzerne
County line.
   
As Weidemer and Burfette waited outside the room, Chesna told Moran about
the Bufalino connection, the agent said. Chesna allegedly offered to wear a
body wire to tape conversations secretly if necessary.
   
Chesna also said he was reluctant to discuss the matter with his attorney,
John Moses, because of Moses’ longtime friendship with his law partner,
Charles Gelso, Moran testified. Gelso represented Bufalino, the late reputed
Kingston mob boss called the “Don of Dons,” in hearings before the
Pennsylvania Crime Commission in the early 1980s. He still represents
Bufalino’s reputed successor, William D’Elia of Hughestown.
   
“He didn’t want to contact his attorney due to connections with his
machines to the Bufalino family,” Moran said.
   
Moses said Tuesday that Chesna is a personal friend, but he’s never
represented the former district justice in any courtroom.
   
“I can tell you I don’t know anything about that,” Moses said.
   
Chesna’s current attorney, Urbanski, told the judges that the Bufalino
connection is hearsay and should be discounted.
   
“Take that for what it’s worth,” Urbanski said.
   
Investigator tells of the `secret room’
   
Moran described in detail how he managed in early 1991 to get into the
closely guarded “secret room” Chesna built in the rear of the service station,
located on the Sans Souci Parkway across from the Air Products and Chemicals
Inc. plant.
   
He watched people come and go for several days without buying any gas, he
said. He caught a glimpse of Chesna wiping the glass on a video poker machine
in the garage area.
   
Finally, on Jan. 14, the agent got past Alex Chesna, described as the
“gatekeeper” of the operation, by asking him if “the lights in the back room
were on,” Moran said.
   
In a back hallway, Moran approached by a brown wooden door with a
five-number lock, he said. Using information provided by a confidential
informant, he punched the numbers “5” and “1” and walked right in.
   
The room, measuring about 10 feet by 10 feet with a drawn yellow curtain,
contained six video poker machines resembling games in an arcade, as well as
two smaller portable models, he said.
   
Moran played one of the large machines for up to a half hour, then told
Alex Chesna he’d be back, he said. He returned the next night and played
again, this time putting in two $20 bills marked with his initials and the
date.
   
Alex Chesna allegedly paid the agent $25.50 for the credits he had on the
machine that night. Moran proceeded directly from the station to Bishop Hoban
High School, in Wilkes-Barre, where he had arranged to meet Luzerne County
Court of Common Pleas President Judge Patrick Toole at a basketball game.
   
Moran finished writing an affidavit for a search warrant at the high school
in front of Toole, who signed it on the spot, the agent said. Moran then
joined six other waiting state agents, notified Hanover Township police and
conducted the raid.
   
No one was at the station when the agents arrived at 10:15 p.m., Moran
said. Robert Chesna got there about 11 p.m. as the search was almost over.
   
Chesna made no statement when Moran showed him an inventory sheet showing
$6,000 seized from the business, the agent said.
   
The raid apparently didn’t stop Chesna from operating, however. Moran
served another search warrant at the station more than three months later, on
April 25, and confiscated another two machines and a spiral notebook with
gambling notes, he said.
   
Retired state trooper James Girard, testifying as an expert witness
Tuesday, told the court that none of the machines seized from Chesna’s qualify
as legal amusements.
   
“There’s no skill at all in playing these devices,” Girard said. “No skill
at all.”
   
Robert Chesna
   
TIMES LEADER/PETE G. WILCOX
   
Vincent J. Quinn, chief counsel for the Judicial Conduct Board, said former
District Justice Robert Chesna damaged the legal profession.