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Musto charges seemingly solidify another link for developer to federal probe.

Musto

Mericle

Robert Mericle has become one of the area’s best-known businessmen over the last two decades because of his reputation for ambitious real estate development.

But over the last two years that reputation has been increasingly sullied by revelations of his connection to figures indicted during the federal probe into Luzerne County corruption, as well as his own September 2009 guilty plea to a charge of withholding information about crimes.

The latest revelation of Mericle’s ties to the probe came in April, when federal agents seized building permits for work Mericle Construction performed on property owned by state Sen. Raphael Musto in 2006.

Those connections were solidified in details contained in Musto’s indictment on corruption charges on Tuesday.

While neither Mericle, 47, of Jackson Township, nor any of his companies were specifically named in the indictment, which charges Musto, a seven-term Democrat from Pittston, with fraud and accepting bribes, it alleges Musto contracted with a construction company in 2006 to do $47,900 in renovations on a property he then owned.

While Musto now faces formal arraignment on Dec. 1, Mericle is facing no additional charges.

At Tuesday’s press conference announcing Musto’s indictment, U.S. Attorney Peter J. Smith said he understands the public wants to know that information, but he is limited in what he can reveal.

“There are very strict legal policies and regulations on what federal prosecutors can say,” Smith said. “We are very aware of the public’s right to know, especially in the area of a series of highly public matters, but there are only specific, limited questions we can answer. These limitations protect the rights of everyone to a fair trail and the integrity of the ongoing investigation.”

To date, only one bribe payer – Richard Emanski of King Glass & Paint in Swoyersville – has been charged. Emanski pleaded guilty in January to providing free carpeting to a Wilkes-Barre Area School Board member who helped Emanski’s firm obtain contracts with the district.

Musto, who sat on the Senate Community, Economic & Recreational Development Committee, was known for his ability to bring funding to the area.

According to data provided Wednesday by the state Department of Community and Economic Development, projects for Mericle Commercial Real Estate Services have been awarded $25.5 million in grant and loan project funding from the department between 2006 and 2009. Of that amount, $14.1 million has been distributed to date.

The department also awarded $12.34 million to Mericle Armstrong Road LLC, which department spokesman Mark Shade said in an e-mail is linked to CenterPoint Commerce & Trade Park East in Jenkins Township, in 2005. All of that funding was distributed.

Shade provided a December 2008 letter to then-DCED Secretary John Blake signed by Musto, state Sen. Robert Mellow and state Rep. Mike Carroll in support of an application from Dupont Borough for $1.15 million in state gaming proceeds to reconstruct Commerce Road.

The road would link a roadway network in CenterPoint and an airport connector road.

Mericle’s lawyer, Kim Borland, declined comment on his client’s behalf Wednesday.

Other cases that arose

Mericle’s name also surfaced in another case in federal court in June, when former Jenkins Township Supervisor Russell Arnone admitted receiving a $5,000 cash payment from Mericle as a reward for helping lower building permit fees in the CenterPoint park.

The money was given under the guise of a political campaign contribution, but Arnone neither used all of the money for his campaign nor reported it on his campaign finance report. Arnone pleaded guilty to failing to report a crime and will be sentenced Monday. Mericle has not been charged with any crime for the payment to Arnone.

Prior to that, Mericle is alleged to have paid more than $2 million to former Luzerne County judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan that was passed through accounts held by Butler Township attorney Robert Powell in the “kids-for-cash” scandal. Powell then disguised payments to the judges as rental fees and other expenses related to his docking of a yacht at a Florida condominium owned by the judges’ wives.

Mericle was not charged with any crime in connection with his payment of those funds.

Mericle, like Powell, was charged with failing to report to authorities knowledge he had that Conahan and Ciavarella had committed the crime of tax evasion for failing to report the kickbacks they received from Mericle and Powell on their returns.

According to the complaint filed against Mericle, he concealed that knowledge from federal investigators and a federal grand jury.

Despite numerous cases of bribery described in indictments of many of the 30 people charged in the corruption probe over the past two years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has repeatedly refused to identify the persons who paid the bribes or to say whether charges will ever be filed against them.