HARRISBURG -- The Pennsylvania attorney general is investigating a former legislator's claim that he and three other lawmakers received $5,000 checks at a 2005 meeting from a company owned by a casino owner currently facing perjury charges.

Frank LaGrotta last year told investigators from the office of Attorney General Tom Corbett that he received a check drawn on the account of D&L Realty, a Dunmore, Lackawanna County, firm co-owned by Louis and Dominick DeNaples. The check, which Mr. LaGrotta told investigators was blank on the recipient line, was signed by Dominick DeNaples and one of several handed out during a meeting in the office of then-House minority whip Mike Veon, D-Beaver Falls.

Under Pennsylvania law, D&L, as a partnership, would have been permitted to make campaign contributions, but investigators are attempting to determine if any laws were broken because of how the checks were distributed.

The donations came prior to Louis DeNaples' application for a casino license and were among hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations handed out by Mr. DeNaples and his associated businesses before an application deadline, after which license-seekers were legally forbidden from making political contributions.

Prosecutors were particularly intrigued by Mr. LaGrotta's assertion that he had been instructed to hand back most of the $5,000 he received after filling his own name in on the check. Mr. LaGrotta told them that he understood that at least three other lawmakers had also been asked to contribute part or most of their own $5,000 checks to Mr. Veon's campaign committee.

Mr. LaGrotta provided his account last year during two days of debriefings by investigators who had offered immunity from prosecution in return for information about the workings of the House Democratic Caucus. In February, Mr. LaGrotta pleaded guilty to two counts of conflict of interest in connection with the hiring of his sister and niece for work in his state legislative office during the final days of his term.

His cooperation with the attorney general was part of the basis for a sentence that included no jail time.

Earlier this year, state prosecutors issued subpoenas for the campaign finance records of four current and former state legislators, including those of Mr. Veon, according to sources close to the probe. Mr. Veon's former campaign treasurer, Stephen Keefer, was called to testify before a state grand jury last month, where he was asked about any political contributions from casino applicants.

Mr. Keefer is not believed to be a target of the check investigation.

According to the account given to investigators, Mr. LaGrotta was summoned to Mr. Veon's office around March 4, 2005, several months before Mr. DeNaples was scheduled to apply for one of three at-large casino licenses to be awarded under newly enacted state legislation.

Mr. LaGrotta told the investigators that he was advised by a Veon aide that he would be given a $5,000 check but was expected to make a donation of $4,500 to Mr. Veon. He was then handed a check that he told agents lacked a recipient's name in the appropriate line. He said he recognized the firm as a company owned by the DeNaples brothers.

Other legislators were also present in the office, Mr. LaGrotta told investigators. While they were handed checks from the same envelope, he did not indicate whether he saw them clearly enough to know if they also had blank recipient lines.

Campaign finance records indicate a $4,500 donation by Mr. LaGrotta to Mr. Veon's campaign on Nov. 17, 2005, but Mr. LaGrotta's own campaign committee does not show a $5,000 donation by D&L.

He told investigators that he was frightened by the nature of the check and the circumstances under which he received it and, consequently, deposited the money directly into his personal bank account, then passed a donation along later to Mr. Veon.

To date, investigators have not reached a conclusion about Mr. LaGrotta's story, according to sources close to the case, nor has Mr. LaGrotta himself been summoned before the state grand jury.

Mr. Veon, through an attorney, has repeatedly denied Mr. LaGrotta's account, first when questioned about it in September of last year and during a subsequent call to his lawyer, Robert Del Greco.

A DeNaples spokesman, Kevin Feeley, has previously declined comment about whether subpoenas were issued for his bank records or on the LaGrotta allegations other than to say that Louis DeNaples "is not the focus of any such investigation."

Dominick DeNaples did not return calls requesting comment.

Mr. Veon and Louis DeNaples are also the targets of separate investigations.

A statewide grand jury meeting in Harrisburg has heard testimony in a probe into $4 million in pay bonuses awarded to scores of state employees at the end of 2006. Jurors are seeking to determine whether those bonuses were given to reward state employees for work on political campaigns during that year.

While prosecutors are looking at both the House Democratic caucus and the Republican Senate caucus, the largest share of bonuses went to employees of the House Democrats.

Already, a series of e-mails linking past pay bonuses to campaign work has implicated several top ranking aides in the House Democratic caucus, which Mr. Veon helped to oversee, as well as Mr. Veon himself.

Additionally, the grand jury is examining obstruction of justice charges against a number of former caucus employees.

In January, a Dauphin County grand jury recommended four perjury counts against Louis DeNaples. Prosecutors charged him with lying to the Pennsylvania Gaming Commission about his ties to organized crime figures when applying for a casino license. Mr. DeNaples has denied the charges.

In the run-up to his gaming application, Mr. DeNaples and his associated businesses distributed more than $800,000 in political donations. Among the larger single donations through D&L was $15,000 to Mr. Corbett, the attorney general now looking into the D&L contributions to legislators.

Kevin Harley, a Corbett spokesman, declined to comment on the ongoing investigation, but said the DeNaples contribution to the Corbett campaign would have no effect on the attorney general's look into the legislative donations.