State News-Wednesday, Dec.20th

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Pennsylvania gambling regulators are planning to award licenses for five standalone slot-machine casinos today. The decisions by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board could make Philadelphia the country's largest city with a casino and bring gambling to the outskirts of the historic Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg. The slots licenses -- two for Philadelphia, one for Pittsubrgh and two for the rest of the state -- are being chased by 13 bidders. The board is making its decisions after five weeks of public hearings on the casino plans that wrapped up last week.

BENSALEM, Pa. (AP) - Officials at Philadelphia Park say they had more than ten-thousand customers for the slot-machine parlor on its first day. The horce racing track about 20 miles north of downtown Philadelphia now features a gambling hall with 22-hundred slot machines, a bar and buffet. Its opening yesterday was more subdued than the crowds that flocked to the state's first slots parlor last month near Wilkes-Barre. The opening of Philadelphia Park is expected to create competition for Atlantic City casinos. And some potential gamblers who stopped by say they won't stop heading to the Jersey Shore.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia-based Aramark Corporation is expected to go private for the second time in 22 years. Shareholders of the nation's largest food service company are expected to vote today for a six-point-three billion dollars leveraged buyout offer. This is the second time long-running Chief Executive Joseph Neubauer is leading an investment group to take Aramark private. The first was in 1984, to thwart a hostile takeover from corporate raiders. This time, Neubauer believes that Aramark's shares do not adequately reflect the value of the business and performance. He wants Aramark to escape the pressure of having to meet Wall Street's quarterly expectations.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A former Philadelphia bank executive has pleaded guilty to bank fraud and embezzlement. Edward Mawhinney worked at National Penn Bank. He says he made 700-thousand dollars from a complex six-point-two million dollar embezzlement scheme. Prosecutors say the 37-year-old Sewell, New Jersey, man misappropriated the rest of the money. That includes four-point-three million dollars in unauthorized loans he steered to a group of dentists. Unless the two sides reach an agreement, the judge may have to rule on the disputed loss amount before the sentencing scheduled for March.

EBENSBURG, Pa. (AP) - A former Boy Scout leader awaiting a new trial on charges he sexually abused a boy has pleaded no contest to indecent assault as part of a plea agreement that will make him eligible for parole in January. Under the agreement, 50-year-old Charles A Miller will be sentenced to one to two years in prison and seven years of probation. Miller had been convicted in March 2005 of sexually abusing one boy in his Boy Scout troop and corrupting the morals of another. He was sentenced to five and a-half to 20 years in prison and has been in prison since the conviction. Miller was granted a new trial in September after the state
Superior Court said Cambria County prosecutor Michael Carbonara committed prosecutorial misconduct.

READING, Pa. (AP) - Officials say a former Reading School Board president and youth athletic league official is charged with an armed bank robbery. Police say 44-year-old Ricky Dennis Pegram was arrested at his home in Reading on Monday and accused of robbing a Citizens Bank branch on Friday evening. Police in Lower Providence Township, Montgomery County, say several people identified Pegram from security camera footage shown in the news. Court records reviewed by the Reading Eagle newspaper show that Pegram's home is scheduled to be auctioned at a sheriff's sale next month. The current vice president of the school board, Karen McCree, says she's shocked. She adds that she hopes people won't forget all the good that Pegram has done.