By Bob Kalinowski
The Citizens’ Voice
SWOYERVILLE, Pa. — Prosecutors on Monday promised to prove a mother-daughter team conspired to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Swoyerville volunteer fire department, lining their own pockets while denying members life-saving equipment.
The long-awaited trial against Catherine Drago, 83, and her daughter Carol Gamble, 52, finally got underway Monday, nearly six years since the women were first arrested.
Gamble was president of the now-defunct Swoyersville Volunteer Hose Co. No. 1, and Drago was the treasurer of the fire company.
They also were in charge of the popular and lucrative bingo operation, which hosted games twice a week and bused players to the fire headquarters.
“Gamble was running the bingo operation and all the money went through Drago,” Luzerne County Assistant District Attorney Michelle Hardik told jurors during opening arguments.
An audit by the state Bureau of Charitable Organizations determined $734,748 of the fire company’s income generated between January 2004 and November 2007 went unaccounted for, prosecutors say.
This came at a time when fire department members were denied life-saving equipment, Hardik said.
Gamble’s attorney William Ruzzo held off on giving an opening statement, saying he’d make arguments later in the trial.
Drago’s attorney Joseph Sklarosky Sr. told jurors there are two sides to every story and prosecutors had limited knowledge about how the bingo operation worked. He said state auditors, not accountants, and prosecutors assumed money was missing simply by doing an inventory of the fire company’s pull-tab tickets, which are like instant bingo tickets. He said the bingo operation nose dived when the Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs casino opened, but sales of the tickets remained lucrative afterward. Prosecutors did not account for how they held up the bingo operation with pull-tab profits, he said. An examination of tally sheets will show his client is innocent, he said.
“Catherine Drago did not take one copper penny from the Swoyerville Volunteer Fire Company,” Sklarosky said.
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(c)2014 The Citizens’ Voice (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.)
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