HARRISBURG — State police violated the law and an agreement to cooperate in background checks of prospective casino owners when they decided not to share information used later to charge a successful applicant with perjury, the state's former gaming board chairman said.

Tad Decker, who chaired the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board when it awarded slot-machine casino licenses in December 2006, said the transcript of an FBI wiretap would have prompted the agency to delay a vote on Louis A. DeNaples' application until it had fully investigated the implications.

Instead, state police officials told gaming board investigators that the contents of the transcript were not relevant to a background investigation of DeNaples.

Hours before the gaming board voted to award casino licenses to DeNaples and 10 others, police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller gave the gaming board a letter in response to the board's last-minute requests for information. In it, Miller wrote that the state police had "provided present relevant information on applicants" and that regulators "should be in a position to properly ... determine an applicant's suitability for a gaming license."

Decker, in a letter published in Thursday's editions of The Philadelphia Inquirer, characterized the state police's actions as a "misrepresentation" that violated the slot-machine gambling law and agreements with the board and the governor. Not sharing the wiretap transcript with the gaming board "did a terrible disservice to the commonwealth's citizens," Decker wrote.

Decker told The Associated Press on Thursday that the gaming board did not get information that was important to its vetting process.

"Because of what (the state police) did, it was an embarrassment of issuing a license to someone who potentially — potentially — may have done something wrong in the process," Decker said.

DeNaples, who pleaded no contest to a felony charge of conspiracy to defraud the federal government in 1978, is a prolific donor to charitable causes and political campaigns.

In October, he opened Mount Airy Casino Resort in the Pocono Mountains. On Jan. 30, state police filed four perjury charges against him, accusing the wealthy Scranton-area businessman of lying to gaming board investigators to win the casino license.

DeNaples' attorneys said he is innocent and have vowed to fight the charges in court.

The state's slots law authorizes the gaming board to receive information from law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement agencies, however, do not consider the gaming board to be a fellow criminal justice agency that can be privy to investigative files.

Sgt. Bruce Edwards, the president of the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, said the gaming board had enough information as it was to deny a license to DeNaples, or at least delay a vote.