Preetmas Eve

Various outlets on the Cuomo corruption story today - first the NY Times:

Federal corruption charges were announced on Thursday against two former close aides to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a senior state official and six other people, in a devastating blow to the governor’s innermost circle and a repudiation of how his prized upstate economic development programs were managed.

The charges against the former aides, Joseph Percoco and Todd R. Howe, and the state official, Alain Kaloyeros, were the culmination of a long-running federal investigation into the Cuomo administration’s attempts to lure jobs and businesses to upstate New York’s limping economy by furnishing billions of dollars in state funds to developers from Buffalo to Albany. Mr. Howe is cooperating with the investigation, according to a 79-page criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday.

The charges stemmed from “two overlapping criminal schemes involving bribery, corruption and fraud in the award of hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts and other official state benefits,” federal prosecutors said in the complaint.

Politico NY:

ALBANY— Alain Kaloyeros, the now former CEO of SUNY Polytechnic Institute, has been charged with three felony counts in connection to an alleged bid-rigging scheme, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Thursday.

The complaint against Kaloyeros, 60, alleges he steered, or agreed to steer, the awarding of contracts to favorable companies, including Columbia Development, a real estate firm with extensive ties to the Capital Region.

The complaint alleges Kaloyeros improperly used the Request for Proposal process to direct contracts to certain firms for the construction of facilities for SUNY Poly. 

“A year-long investigation by my office found that Alain Kaloyeros allegedly used his perch atop SUNY Polytechnic [and] engaged in brazen bid-rigging, using taxpayer dollars and abusing his power to enrich himself and his cronies,” Schneiderman said at a press conference in Manhattan. “According to our criminal complaint, Kaloyeros gave insider information to friends and fixed the bidding process to ensure his cronies lucrative contracts, funded in part by the state of New York.

Kaloyeros, who is expected to be arraigned in Albany City Court on Friday, has been charged with three felony counts of Combination in Restraint of Trade and Competition. Joseph Nicolla, the head of Columbia Development, has been charged with one felony count of of Combination in Restraint of Trade and Competition and is expected to be arraigned on Monday.

Is Cuomo himself implicated in any of this?

Bharara was asked if Cuomo himself has any involvement in the case by a reporter who noted that he had once issued a statement absolving the governor of wrongdoing in connection with the early demise of the corruption-busting Moreland Commission. His reply:

“What I can say at this moment is that there are no allegations of any wrongdoing or misconduct by the governor anywhere in this complaint. That’s all I’m going to say.”

When pressed on whether it’s “realistic” to believe that the governor, who has a reputation of being something of a micromanager, did not know what his top aide was up to, Bharara said simply: “It’s not my job to comment on what is realistic or unrealistic.”

Bharara also said that this investigation, “as a general matter,” remains open.

Politically there's going to be some serious fallout for Cuomo and he's never going to want Sandra Lee to make "ziti" every again, but he appears to be skating on criminal charges, at least for now.

Whether that changes as a result of any of the fellows charged today dishing dirt on him, we'll just have to wait and see.

In any case Happy Preetmas Eve everybody.

Next up in the NY Corruption Season - Bill de Blasio and those donors.

Former Cuomo Aide Joe Percoco, Others To Face Corruption Charges Related To Andrew Cuomo's Economic Development Projects

Finally:

Federal authorities plan to unseal charges against a former top aide to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo as early as Thursday in connection with an alleged bribery and kickback scheme involving the governor’s signature economic-development program, according to people familiar with the matter.

In addition to the former aide, Joseph Percoco, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan intends to bring public-corruption charges against a number of other individuals in connection with the wide-ranging investigation, these people said.

The precise nature of the charges against Mr. Percoco, who for decades was one of Mr. Cuomo’s most senior aides and closest friends, wasn’t immediately clear.

For months, Mr. Percoco has been at the center of a probe by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office concerning allegations of bribery and kickbacks in connection with an economic-development program known as the Buffalo Billion, which Mr. Cuomo has lauded as having revived the sleepy upstate economy.

Since the investigation became public in April, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, has distanced himself from Mr. Percoco and ordered an internal review of the Buffalo Billion program. A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening.

And the fallout for Cuomo:

The probe and expected charges represent the most significant political crisis Mr. Cuomo has faced since he took office in 2011, in part because they are linked to some of his signature programs and major donors, but also because of the alleged involvement of Mr. Percoco in particular.

For years, Mr. Percoco has been one of the governor’s most trusted allies, an individual so tight with the Cuomo family that the governor once described him as “my father’s third son, who sometimes I think he loved the most.”

If anybody knows where some of the Andrew Cuomo administration bodies are buried, it would be Joe Percoco, Mario's "third son."

Some reaction:

Hard to overestimate this story in NY politics: Joe Percoco, Cuomo's longtime top aide, will face bribery charges: https://t.co/P2NC4MA7j8

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) September 22, 2016

Who else will be indicted?

Perhaps Percoco's wife, who also was being investigated for funky payments from one of the companies involved.

SUNY Poly's Alain Kaloyeros was getting looked at as well as part of the investigation, but whether he's part of today's show is uncertain.

I suspect if Kaloyeros were going to go down today, he'd have been part of the leak.

Definitely Todd Howe, who has been cooperating with the feds in the matter, to be charged - the NY Times reports half a dozen people are going to be charged today in all.

As for Andrew Cuomo, the damage to his administration will be big, though probably not fatal.

This is Cuomo's signature economic development program that Percoco and Company were using as their personal cash box and Cuomo, Mr. Accountability himself, had no idea (or so he says) this was going on.

At the very least, the political damage is that Cuomo was not paying attention as those closest to him (Percoco and former Cuomo aide/now cooperating with the feds lobbyist Todd Howe) were engaging in bribery/kickback schemes and other shenanigans.

The NY Times described the fallout for Cuomo as

a devastating blow to the governor’s innermost circle and a repudiation of how his prized upstate economic development programs were managed, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

There remains the possibility that Percoco can be squeezed for what he knows about Cuomo and all those donors (the pattern has been: Donate to Cuomo, Get Contract/Favor in return), though I suspect if that were going to happen, there might already be indication of that in a leak.

In any case, going to be a fun day if you've been waiting for the Cuomo economic development project bribery/kickback/corruption investigation season to finally kick off.

One final point: with Bharara finally making a move on Percoco, I wouldn't be surprised if we don't get some action on one or more of the various de Blasio corruption probes in the very near future.

Cuomo Looks To Take Out De Blasio In Election But Ought To Be Looking Over His Own Shoulder

This showed up in the NY Times today:

Maybe it was Mayor Bill de Blasio’s rough week at the Democratic National Convention, when he was relegated to a daytime speaking slot and upstaged by his archrival, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, and his predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg.

Maybe it was the drumbeat of bad news related to the multiple federal and state investigations swirling around City Hall. Or maybe it was a recent poll suggesting that half of New York City voters believe Mr. de Blasio does not deserve to be re-elected to a second term.

Whatever the reason, members of New York’s political class have turned their attention to the 2017 mayoral race, or more precisely, to the question of whether Mr. de Blasio will even face a serious challenge when he seeks re-election.

While the recent poll, released this month by Quinnipiac University, found that a majority of respondents disapprove of Mr. de Blasio’s performance as mayor, none of his obvious potential opponents fared well against him in hypothetical matchups.

The poll’s findings, however, suggested that there may be an opportunity for a Democrat running as an independent against Mr. de Blasio in the general election, perhaps after a strong but losing run in the Democratic primary or after skipping the primary altogether.

The piece goes on to suggest that one third party option against de Blasio in the general could be - wait for it - Cuomo's fake women's party:

The poll results showed that Mr. de Blasio would handily beat two prospective challengers — Christine C. Quinn, the former City Council speaker who ran against him in 2013, and the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer — in a primary. But it also showed a closer race if either Ms. Quinn or Mr. Stringer ran as an independent in the general election, although the survey’s questions did not reflect the presence of a Republican candidate, which may have affected some voters’ responses.

“I am certain somebody somewhere is going to challenge the mayor,” said Rachel Demarest Gold, acting state chairwoman of the Women’s Equality Party, a third party closely aligned with Mr. Cuomo. “He is a lightning-rod mayor and he has whipped up extreme feelings on both ends of the spectrum and people are going to respond to that.”

The Women's Equality Party (WEP) is not just a third party aligned with Cuomo - it's a third party created by Cuomo as retaliation against the Working Families Party (WFP) for humiliating him back in 2014 and forcing him to grovel for the WFP endorsement.

The idea was, WEP would end up on the ballot near WFP and confuse just enough voters to drive down WFP support and, maybe, drive down enough support to force WFP from the ballot next time around.

That didn't happen, but now we see WEP, Cuomo's fake women's party, being floated as the possible vehicle for a de Blasio challenger - clearly a gambit by Cuomo to convince somebody to run third party against de Blasio since, at least so far, de Blasio appears fairly strong against direct party challengers within the Democratic Party.

Cuomo is spending an awful lot of time trying to take out de Blasio, as was reported by Fred Dicker in the NY Post a while back, and this WEP gambit appears to be just one more attempt at that.

But even as Cuomo plays games with de Blasio, he has his own potential challenger on the horizon for 2018 - Tom DiNapoli, the New York Comptroller.

DiNapoli has released multiple audits this year questioning the effectiveness of Cuomo's economic development programs and the veracity of the PR Cuomo uses to sell them - something that apparently irks King Cuomo and came to a head this week:

In Buffalo on Tuesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo criticized state lawmakers and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli for expressing skepticism over the effectiveness of his economic development spending upstate.

Cuomo, who has long had a truculent relationship with DiNapoli, a fellow Democrat, said the comptroller was “dead wrong” on the issue of tax breaks for jobs and “should educate himself in the area.”

“You will not attract jobs, you will not keep jobs unless you are willing to work with the private sector and incentivize them,” Cuomo said. “This is not a highly competitive arena. If we are not as competitive, we will lose to the other states.”

DiNapoli’s office has issued a series of critical audits and reports questioning Cuomo’s handling of the START-UP NY program, which provides a decade of tax-free operations in New York for companies that move to the state and create jobs.

The program has come under scrutiny after a report found only 400 or so jobs have been created so far despite the heavy spending for the effort.

But Cuomo insisted the tax breaks were necessary in order to compete with other states who have similar programs in place.

“The incentives are working and the incentives are working by definition by what it requires to win,” he said.

DiNapoli, in a statement, responded to Cuomo’s criticisms.

“There is no debate on the need to create jobs in New York,” he said. “Our audits have thoughtful, constructive recommendations for how New York’s economic development programs can be more effective.”

Perhaps further irking Cuomo, DiNapoli has been making the rounds on the radio and appearing with hosts that, well, let's just say might be DiNapoli's way of sending a message to Cuomo:

Enjoyed talking this week with @NYPost’s Fred Dicker @fud31 on NY’s jobs programs and economic forecast. Listen: https://t.co/nVvx2PFL1Z

— Tom DiNapoli (@NYSComptroller) August 6, 2016

Oh my. Cuomo's 2014 opponent interviewing DiNapoli, whom Cuomo does not care much for. https://t.co/N82W6RO9O0

— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellGAN) August 11, 2016

There was talk during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia that Bernie Sanders supporters are looking for a challenger to take out Cuomo in the 2018 primary.

DiNapoli is starting to look like he could be that challenger.

How delicious the irony, even as Cuomo desperately works to find a challenger to take on de Blasio in 2017, he appears to be getting his own challenger in 2018.

Now here's the thing about all of this.

Until we know how the various federal investigations into de Blasio turn out, we're not going to see any prominent Dem (e.g., Stringer, Diaz Jr.) make any public moves to primary de Blasio - the Q poll shows the potential futility of taking on de Blasio directly in the primary, at least for now.

But if indictments come to de Blasio's inner circle, that will change but quick and if de Blasio is indicted himself, well, put the fork in him.

The machinations against de Blasio here, from Cuomo behind the scenes, from Bloomberg crony Bradley Tusk publicly, make for a good summer story in the NY Times, but I'm not sure how meaningful any of it is until we get some resolution from US Attorney Preet Bharara on de Blasio.

The same can be said for Cuomo.

Bharara is investigating many of those Cuomo economic development programs the governor loves to tout and news came early this week that one of his cronies, lobbyist Todd Howe, has made a deal with the feds in return for leniency.  Howe has been close to Cuomo since the HUD days and, while the governor has said he isn't really that close with Howe anymore, news reports (and photographs) suggest otherwise.

If/when indictments come to Cuomo's inner circle, the prognosis for Cuomo's 2018 re-election gets a little murkier, especially if the US attorney takes apart Cuomo's economic development programs as little but a cash register for Cuomo cronies like Todd Howe and former aide Joe Percoco.

There also remains the possibility that Cuomo himself is the ultimate target of these investigations, since many of Cuomo's donors have been subpoenaed and the pattern - "donate to Cuomo = get state contract/tax break/favors in return" remains in play in many of these instances.

In the end, I think we'll know fairly soon what's going to happen with de Blasio and Cuomo regarding the Bharara investigations. 

There was a report in Dicker's column in the Post that the public would get some inkling of what's going on in the Cuomo investigations by the end of the summer. With the election coming soon, the likelihood is we'll get some inkling on de Blasio too.

But until Bharara makes his moves, all of the 2017 and 2018 jockeying is little more than noise.

You know, the kind of shit Cuomo is best at.

Cuomo Associate Has Cooperation Deal With Preet Bharara

Have been waiting post-conventions for some Preet news.

Here is an interesting bit of it:

The corruption probe of Gov. Cuomo’s two longtime associates has taken a critical turn with Todd Howe, onetime lobbyist and longtime Cuomo family confidant, signing a “cooperation agreement’’ with US Attorney Preet Bharara, a source close to the investigation told The Post.

The agreement promises Howe, whose ties to Cuomo go back three decades, “favorable treatment’’ and “leniency’’ in the event that he’s criminally charged, in exchange for full details of his lobbying activities on behalf of several major state contractors with senior Cuomo administration officials.

Those officials include Joseph Percoco, Cuomo’s closest friend and top aide who is currently senior vice president at Madison Square Garden, the source said.

Howe has been interviewed by federal prosecutors “about six times,’’ most recently about two weeks ago, when he “traded something that has to do with Percoco’’ and provided information on the influential, Albany-based, Whiteman Osterman & Hanna law firm, with which he had been affiliated, the source said. 

Howe, who worked for Cuomo when the current governor was federal housing secretary under President Bill Clinton, was described by the source as isolated from friends and family and disconsolate as Bharara’s investigation continues to unfold.

“He doesn’t have a job and no one from Andrew Cuomo’s entourage will even deal with him,’’ said the source.

Cuomo claimed that he didn't have much to do with Howe in the recent past, but Tim Knauss discovered that he was showing up at Cuomo functions like this one:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A smiling Todd Howe was photographed, standing in the background, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo enthusiastically shook hands with the president of COR Development Co. during an October 2012 visit to Syracuse.

Four years later, Howe is no longer in the background. The Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist is front and center in a federal investigation of Cuomo's Upstate economic development projects, according to published reports.

Another person named in the federal probe is Joseph Percoco, Cuomo's former executive deputy secretary, who appears with Howe in the background of the 2012 photo from Syracuse.

The photo was taken during sunnier times for Cuomo's Upstate economic initiatives, years before U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's investigation raised a cloud of suspicion.

The picture captures the role that Howe has apparently been playing for years in Syracuse economic development projects. Since the federal probe became publicly known, Howe's image has emerged as an affable guy to see for help in getting state funding or access to Albany power.

In the foreground of the 2012 photo, Cuomo shakes hands with Steven Aiello, president of COR, a Fayetteville company. COR is one of more than 20 companies about which Bharara has subpoenaed information from the Cuomo administration, according to reports.

Howe was also used as the "hand model" for Mario Cuomo's portrait in Albany:

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo claims he barely knows a fired lobbyist under federal investigation — yet he was close enough to the family to be the secret hand model behind Mario Cuomo’s official portrait, The Post has learned.

The liberal legend Mario had scoffed for years at having his likeness hung among the Empire State’s other leaders, so Andrew went behind his back to have the work secretly created from a 1989 photograph.

But the artist demanded it include Mario’s hands clasped on his knee, even though the photo didn’t clearly show his mitts.

“The artist insisted that he needed to see the Governors [sic] hands to paint them,” Howard Glaser, Andrew’s former director of state operations and Mario’s senior advisor, wrote in a private Facebook post obtained by The Post.

Enter Todd Howe, who is being probed by the feds for lobbying work he did for three firms that are part of the Cuomo administration’s economic-development program, the Buffalo Billion.

He raced down to the painter’s Maryland studio and literally lent a hand.

“The artist painted Todd’s hands into the painting to complete the work. So, yeah, it’s actually Todd Howes hands you see painted in the final portrait!!!!! Classic!” Glaser wrote.

Peter Cutler, a former Cuomo spokesman who is also named in a federal subpoena, replied, “Todd told me, saying it was pretty nerve-wracking — as I’m sure we can all understand,” he wrote.

“Thank God GAMC [Governor Andrew Mark Cuomo] pushed to get the portrait done & installed.”

The artist, Simmie Knox — who also did official portraits for then-President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary — recalled Howe giving guidance on how they wanted the painting done, but clammed up when he found out that the lobbyist was under a federal probe.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo presented the painting to his dad as a birthday gift at a 2012 ceremony.

Cuomo distanced himself from Howe in May and in June, claiming he and Howe were not "close."

The record appears to contradict that Cuomo assertion.

Whether Howe is telling tales on Cuomo or just providing evidence against Percoco and the entities involved in state contracting, well, that's hard to say.

Fred Dicker's piece says Howe is promised "'favorable treatment' and 'leniency' in the event that he’s criminally charged, in exchange for full details of his lobbying activities on behalf of several major state contractors with senior Cuomo administration officials."

The phrase leaves "senior Cuomo administration officials" is the interesting thing there.

That may mean people around Cuomo, or previously around Cuomo (like Percoco.)

But, since Cuomo has been known to leak anonymously to the press under the moniker "a senior Cuomo administration official," it also could mean Cuomo himself.

Time will tell whether Cuomo is actually the target of all of this or if Bharara gets to his inner circle without touching Cuomo himself.

So far, we have no direct indication that Cuomo is in any legal jeopardy.

But you can bet that if the Cuomo people didn't already know that Bharara has Howe wrapped up with a cooperation agreement, they're not happy now that the news is in Dicker's column in the NY Post.

Because who knows what Howe is telling Bharara now that he's cooperating.

Cuomo Closely Tied To Politico Indicted For Bribery/Extortion

Fred Dicker reported Governor Cuomo's close ties to indicted Western New York power broker Steven Pigeon in yesterday's New York Post, noting that Pigeon was so tied to Cuomo last election cycle that the governor had him attending both election strategy and policy meetings:

Cuomo was so close to Pigeon — charged last week with nine felonies in connection with the alleged bribing of a state Supreme Court justice — that he gave him a key role in his 2014 re-election campaign despite objections from more important political aides like Joseph Percoco and Larry Schwartz, who considered him “untrustworthy and a little sleazy,’’ a source close to the campaign told The Post.

Cuomo directed Percoco, the focus of an ongoing probe by corruption-fighting US Attorney Preet Bharara, and Schwartz, Cuomo’s former chief of staff, and a handful of other trusted aides to allow Pigeon to attend key strategy meetings at the campaign headquarters from which virtually all other political operatives were excluded, said the campaign source.

“They objected, but the governor forced Pigeon on them,’’ according to the source. “At first Pigeon started to just show up at campaign strategy meetings, even though no one knew who had invited him to come.

“But it turned out that it was the governor who invited him to be there because the governor had come to believe that Pigeon was some kind of a political genius,’’ said the source.

Cuomo sought re-election obsessed with racking up a big vote in Buffalo and Erie County, Pigeon’s bailiwick, which he had lost four years earlier to Republican Carl Paladino, the source said.

Pigeon, the longtime Erie County Democratic chairman, “was the guy who Andrew was taking counsel from as to how to win in Buffalo this time around, but he was also taking his counsel on broader statewide issues,’’ the source said.

A second source said Cuomo was so close to Pigeon that in 2010, Gov. David Paterson refused to allow then-Attorney General Cuomo to name a special prosecutor to investigate election-related corruption charges being made against Pigeon — because he felt Cuomo “couldn’t be trusted to authorize a fair probe.’’

“Everyone knew at that time how close Cuomo was to Pigeon,’’ said the source.

Dicker writes that Cuomo was partly behind the 2009 Senate coup by turncoat Dems that Pigeon helped engineer, with Cuomo and Pigeon in close communication as the coup unfolded and control of the state Senate went to Republicans after turncoat Dems like Pedro Espada and Hiram Montserrate threw their lots in with Republicans (both men ended up in prison for corruption charges unrelated to the state Senate coup.)

Just as Cuomo has tried to distance himself from his former aide and lobbyist pal, Todd Howe (now squarely in the sights of federal prosecutors for corruption), Cuomo wants to distance himself from the now-indicted Steve Pigeon and make believe like he barely knows him.

But the record, when fully examined, shows Cuomo was as close as could be with both Pigeon and Howe (see here how Howe kept showing up at Cuomo functions and/or raising money for the governor simultaneous to the time Cuomo claims not to know what Howe was doing.)

Same goes for Pigeon - see the Buffalo News piece on Pigeon from 2013 as well as yesterday's Dicker piece.

You can bet if investigators look real close at the Cuomo relationships with his corrupt associates - Pigeon, Howe, former aide Joe Percoco, SUNY Poly head Alain Kaloyeros - they will find some interesting things, some of which may turn out to be criminal.

Whether they go that far, well, that's hard to say.

But Preet Bharara has warned executive branches in the state that malfeasance in the executive will be rooted out.

So Cuomo shouldn't get to comfortable thinking all he's got to do to keep himself from scrutiny is just keep repeated "I don't know these people, I don't know these people..."

Bharara Warns Cuomo And De Blasio He's Coming For Them

Preet Bharara was on ABC this morning with a warning for both Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio:

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara publicly put Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo on notice Sunday that he’s actively searching for evidence of corruption in their branches of government.

“We have found that corruption is rife in a lot of institutions in New York and throughout New York,” Bharara said during a national TV interview.

“That’s true in the legislature. It’s also the case that there’s corruption, we believe, in the executive branches as well. And we’ll ferret it out wherever we find it.”

Bharara’s stinging comments on ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” come amid probes by his office into fund-raising efforts by Mayor de Blasio and suspected bid-rigging in state-funded development projects.

They also followed an interview last month in which Bharara bristled at the suggestion that Cuomo had been cleared of wrongdoing when Bharara declined to charge him for unexpectedly shutting down the anti-corruption Moreland Commission in 2014.

“Nobody gave a clean bill of health to anybody. A non-indictment is not an endorsement of anyone’s conduct,” Bharara told the New Yorker in what the magazine described as “an uncharacteristically icy tone.”

Cuomo's administration is the subject of a massive federal investigation into his economic development projects all over the state.

Cuomo's top former aide, Joe Percoco, is one focus of that investigation.

A second is another former Cuomo aide and close associate, Todd Howe.

A third is SUNY Poly head Alain Kaloyeros, Cuomo's man in charge of the economic development projects.

As the Post piece notes, de Blasio is the subject of a few investigations too.

The election is coming in November, so if anything is going to come of these investigations, it will come before then.

It's not a mistake that Bharara was on ABC News this morning to talk about corruption in the executive branches in this state.

That's a little head nod that something's coming soon.

We know that one of de Blasio's fund raisers is cooperating with the feds, so my guess is, the de Blasio investigations will get movement first.

But there's a lot going on with the Cuomo investigations too.

There's no certainty that Cuomo's going to go down, but given the subpoenas that went out across the state as part of the investigation into his economic development programs, you can pretty much bet some of those associates of his are going down.

And there's an outside chance that after some squeezing, some of those associates will have tales to trade to prosecutors for lighter sentences.

One way or another, it's beginning to sound a lot like Preetmas.

Cuomo's Worried About The Corruption Probes

That's the takeaway I get from the two pieces out in the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times this morning about Joe Percoco and the Cuomo administration.

They're appearing simultaneously and have a very Cuomoesque slant to the corruption investigation (i.e., this is all the fault of former aides Todd Howe and Joe Percoco.)

They appear to have come directly from the Cuomo administration itself.

In addition, Fred Dicker has a piece out today saying the Scheiderman raid of SUNY Polytechnic was encouraged by the governor in order to throw SUNY Poly head Alain Kaloyeros under the bus:

Cuomo’s reaction to Bharara’s probe — which focuses in part on two of his closest friends and longtime associates, former aide Joe Percoco and lobbyist Todd Howe — was to push Kaloyeros aside and hire a special outside investigator, Bart Schwartz, to oversee the development projects going forward.

...

Bharara has been focusing his attention on Percoco and Howe — who were paid by major companies doing state business — and large state-hired construction firms that contributed to Cuomo’s re-election.

Schneiderman is focused more narrowly on possible bid-rigging and a violation of a state antitrust laws in relation to a SUNY Polytechnic dorm-construction project.

Schneiderman’s raid — to which some journalists were given notice even before investigators seized materials from an office once used by Howe — was described by a source close to SUNY as having been “clearly conducted with Cuomo’s encouragement’’ in an attempt to shift blame away from the governor to Kaloyeros.

“Cuomo and his people are trying to save their asses at the expense of everyone else,’’ the source said.

Kaloyeros did not return calls seeking comment. Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi insisted the sources “clearly don’t know what they’re talking about’’ and denied that the governor was involved in trying to undermine Kaloyeros.

Dicker also says Schwartz is slowing down work in the Buffalo Billion Project "to a crawl" in order to scrutinize everything.

The Cuomo admin responded with this doozy:

So this is going well. Cuomo spox now reduced to "sources don't know what they're talking about."#BuffaloBillion https://t.co/xtLyBRF6kp

— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) June 14, 2016

Put it all together and what you have here is Cuomo going on the PR offensive in the Times and WSJ against Percoco and more evidence that Cuomo, despite talking more cautiously in public about Kaloyeros than he has about Percoco and Howe, looking to throw Dr. Nano under the bus as well.

This says he's very worried about what's going to come out of the Bharara probe and is going on the offensive once again to try and distance himself as much as possible from Percoco, Howe, and Kaloyeros.

Good luck with that, Andy.

The pattern - donors donate to you, get contracts/grants/subsidies/favors in return - remains.

It's Pay-To-Play All The Way With Andrew Cuomo

Jon Campbell takes an extensive look at Governor Cuomo's economic development programs and finds the following:

Two of New York’s most-powerful landlords are little-known nonprofits with deep pockets, well-connected boards of directors, ties to Rochester contractors and a growing portfolio worth billions that has attracted attention from federal prosecutors.

Meet the Fort Schuyler Management Corp. and Fuller Road Management Corp., owners of an increasing number of the facilities at the center of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s push to revitalize upstate New York’s long-lagging economy.

The two nonprofits act as the real-estate arm of the SUNY Polytechnic Institute, the Albany- and Utica-based college whose clout has spread as Cuomo entrusted founding president Alain Kaloyeros with overseeing the Buffalo Billion development program, a $600 million photonics institute in Rochester and facilities in Greece, Canandaigua, Utica and Syracuse.

The nonprofits have awarded lucrative contracts to big-money donors to Cuomo’s political campaign, including two Rochester-based contractors. Board members at various points have seen their companies or clients receive leases and deals, a review by Gannett’s Albany Bureau shows.

For years, Fort Schuyler and Fuller Road have operated with little scrutiny — largely faceless, quasi-public organizations existing as a mechanism to comply with IRS rules when transferring billions in state funds to facilities that house private companies.

That has changed: U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman are separately investigating contracts awarded by the two entities, with Cuomo’s administration acknowledging the federal investigation is examining possible “improper bidding.”

Here's the way this worked:

Contractors submitted bids (often rigged by the state so that only one local contractor could win), then submitted contributions to Cuomo, then won the contracts - whee!!!!

How often did this happen?

A lot - take the Rochester contracts, for example:

As their portfolio grew, Fort Schuyler and Fuller Road have doled out construction contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years. Often, those contracts went to Cuomo campaign donors, records show.

In Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and Plattsburgh, Fort Schuyler put out separate requests for proposals for a “qualified local developer” to develop a “strategic partnership” with.

The requests for proposals were detailed and extensive, requiring a locally based contractor with at least 15 years experience and the ability to build high-tech infrastructure such as clean rooms and smart classrooms.

Fort Schuyler’s contract in Rochester went to LeChase Construction and The Pike Co. in 2014, meeting minutes show.
...

On Sept. 24, 2014, eight days after Fort Schuyler’s board was informed of the Rochester bids, LeChase CEO Wayne LeChase contributed $25,000 to Cuomo’s re-election campaign, state records show. The same day, Pike President Rufus Judson contributed $10,000.

Five days later, Wayne LeChase contributed another $11,181.

And the Buffalo contracts:

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is probing the process by which three developers who are Gov. Cuomo donors came to get the bulk of a billion dollars in state contracts to develop major projects in Buffalo. Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute, the president of which, Alain Kaloyeros, oversees the Buffalo Billion program. The program is supposed to generate thousands of upstate jobs through the tech, clean-energy, and pharmaceutical facilities the Cuomo cronies were tapped to build with $855 million in taxpayer money.

Pressed earlier this summer by a reporter for Buffalo's Investigative Post who was seeking details of the bidding process and faced illegal stonewalling across multiple state agencies and state-run nonprofits, Kaloyeros said, "We are not political operatives nor do we respond to perceived threats and terrorism." That "terrorism" apparently consisted of repeated phone calls, emails, and Freedom of Information Law requests.

Still, little is known about the selection process. What is clear, according to the Investigative Post, is that developer McGuire Development scored the $55 million contract to renovate skyscrapers in Buffalo to accommodate IBM, then three months later, donated $25,000 to Cuomo's campaign. The firm LP Ciminelli scored a heftier $750 million contract to build a solar-panel factory. Its president, Louis Ciminelli, is one of Cuomo's biggest donors in the region, having contributed $96,500 to the governor's two campaigns. Until competitors balked, the request for bids was written with the requirement that bidders have 50 years experience working in Buffalo, which only LP Ciminelli did. That company and Ciminelli Real Estate, run by Louis Ciminelli's brother, won the $50 million contract to build drug research space at a Buffalo medical campus. Paul Ciminelli's $10,500 to Cuomo and $5,000 to Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul cannot have hurt.

And the Syracuse contracts:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- COR Development, the politically connected company developing the state's nanotechnology hub in DeWitt and Syracuse's Inner Harbor, gave Gov. Andrew Cuomo $50,000 in the past six months, making them Cuomo's top donor in Central New York.

Cuomo has $16 million in his campaign account, according to a campaign finance report he filed Friday.

Cuomo received $25,000 last week, on Jan. 12, from a COR Development subsidiary, Clay South Development Co., and four COR executives, including President Steven Aiello, Executive Vice Presidents Joe Girardi and Paul Joynt, and Julie Aiello, the wife of Executive Vice President Jeffrey Aiello.

That came on top of $25,000 that COR Route 31 Co. LLC gave to Cuomo on Aug. 24.
COR has been the governor's biggest contributor from the Syracuse region since Cuomo was elected governor in 2010, giving him more than $300,000.

The company has received contracts from the state for numerous projects under Cuomo. COR built a $15 million film hub for New York state in 2015 on land it owns in DeWitt. Cuomo announced COR would also build a $90 million facility for Soraa, an LED lighting manufacturer at the same nanotechnology hub.

And the timing of the donations?

Often coordinated:

COR Development, its subsidiaries, four partners and their wives are among the largest Cuomo donors in Central New York. They have given a combined $337,500 to Cuomo's election campaigns between October 2010 and January 2016.

Partners and family members write checks to the governor's campaign for as much as $25,000, sometimes on the same day, records show. A statewide candidate can accept up to $44,000 per individual for the four-year election cycle. An individual donor is limited to $150,000 in combined contributions to all candidates in a calendar year, according to the NYS Board of Elections.

A clear pattern - RFP's rigged so that only one or two contractors can win them, proposals submitted by the contractors, donations sent to Cuomo concurrent to the proposals, contracts doled out to the donors.

Now whether Bharara is able to tie Cuomo to this, make a criminal case out of it and take him out in handcuffs is another matter.

But the pattern throughout is quite clear - it's pay-to-play all the way with Andrew Cuomo.

Iphone Of Cuomo Crony Kaloyeros Scrutinized

Just in case you think SUNY Polytechnic head Alain Kaloyeros, the man Andrew Cuomo tasked with so many economic development projects across upstate, isn't in trouble with the law, there's this news:

ALBANY — Investigators from Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office are examining an iPhone belonging to Alain Kaloyeros, the president of SUNY Polytechnic Institute, according to people familiar with an ongoing investigation of the school’s contracting practices.

The phone is coming to Schneiderman after state investigators searched an office at SUNY Poly’s Albany campus that was used by Todd Howe and other employees of Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna, the law firm that had employed him.

The surprise search occurred on May 26, and investigators downloaded files from a computer and listened to Howe’s voicemail. Kaloyeros’ phone was surrendered subsequently, the people said.

An official told POLITICO New York that Howe was the “de facto chief of staff” to Kaloyeros. David Doyle, a spokesman for SUNY Poly, previously said that Howe “provides services in assisting in establishing contacts and partnerships in the private sector and between the private and public sector.”

...

 

Schneiderman’s investigation is centered on a dormitory that SUNY Poly was planning to build adjacent to its flagship campus in western Albany. The developer, Columbia Development, began purchasing land several months before the school formally asked for construction proposals. Columbia has said it did “nothing improper.”

Cuomo has said he stands by Kaloyeros and SUNY Poly’s efforts, which have been the cornerstone of the governor’s efforts to revitalize the upstate economy.

Only a matter of time for Howe, Kaloyeros and Percoco.

Preet Bharara Aware Of How Close Todd Howe Was To Andrew Cuomo

These past few weeks Governor Andrew Cuomo has been playing the "Corrupt lobbyist under federal investigation who kept showing up at my functions and raising money for me?  I have no idea who that guy is!" game.

According to Fred Dicker of the NY Post, it's not working:

Gov. Cuomo’s renewed effort to distance himself from lobbyist and longtime associate Todd Howe flies in the face of Howe’s continuous role as a member of Cuomo’s “inner circle,” a source close to US Attorney Preet Bharara’s corruption probe told The Post.

“From the start, when Cuomo took office, Todd was part of the inner circle of decision makers. He was basically part of the Cuomo administration,” said the source, who has first-hand knowledge of Bharara’s investigation.

“Todd was a coequal to Joe Percoco and Howard Glaser and absolutely seen as the governor’s guy, even though he wasn’t on the state payroll and officially part of the government.

“For Cuomo to suggest otherwise is ridiculous.”

Percoco, Cuomo’s once-powerful deputy secretary and one of his closest friends, is being investigated by Bharara over money he received from state contractors while running the governor’s re-election campaign in 2014. Glaser is Cuomo’s former state operations director.

The source said Glaser’s successor, James Malatras, regularly deferred to Howe when it came to decision-making, acting as if Howe “was his superior.”

“Howe has been regularly dispatched by the governor as a handler on many issues over many years,’’ the source said.

I dunno how close this "source close to US Attorney Preet Bharara's corruption probe" really is, but I'm not at all surprised that the feds investigating Howe are aware of the proximity Howe had to the governor and the power he held in the administration.

As we learned last week, Cuomo's current Director of State Operations, Jim Malatras, considered Howe part of the "Cuomo Team," saying so in an email in which Howe and he discussed how to get SUNY Poly head Alain Kaloyeros to act according to Cuomo's wishes.

Howe, though not paid by the state or SUNY, simultaneously had offices in Cuomo's 2014 re-election campaign apparatus and at SUNY Polytechnic (was raided two weeks ago as part of the probe.)

The raid of Howe's office was just one part of a much wider investigation into Cuomo's administration.

The public may not be paying much attention to any of this and may think Cuomo is an ethical prince, but you can bet Preet has been paying attention and will not be similarly fooled by any of the governor's jive.

As Fred LeBrun wrote in Yesterday's Times Union:

The governor is dancing as fast as he can to deflect attention from himself over the broadening scandal engulfing his administration, eventually reality will catch up. He can pretend the federal investigation is really only focused on "a couple of people" who were once very close to him but now he barely knows, and everything else is fine. But in all likelihood that is not the way it's going to play out.

No state administration in living memory has been embroiled more deeply in a federal investigation of how it does business than Andrew Cuomo's. That, in spite of the fact that Cuomo is a lawyer, and there appear to be far more lawyers per capita in the political state workforce now than ever before.

Let's repeat: No state administration in living memory has been embroiled more deeply in a federal investigation of how it does business than Andrew Cuomo's.

Again, nothing Cuomo says to the cameras will make that reality go way and eventually, when the indictments come down (and they will - Cuomo's men Todd Howe, Joe Percoco and Alain Kaloyeros are as good as done), the public that thinks he's an ethical prince now (see link above) will learn the truth of Andrew Cuomo and how he operates.

Cuomo: I Am Not Close Friends With That Lobbyist Under Federal Investigation

Mike McAndrew at Syracuse.com:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo reiterated Thursday that lobbyist Todd Howe, a focus of a federal investigation, is not a close friend of his despite multiple connections between them being reported by the media.

After a news conference in Syracuse, a reporter asked Cuomo if he maintains he was not close with Howe despite published reports that Howe paid for and hosted a fundraiser for him in December, exchanged emails with Cuomo's top aides, had an office at a SUNY college in Albany, accompanied the governor on a tour of Syracuse economic development projects, and worked for both Cuomo and his father.

Here's how the governor responded:

"I know Todd Howe. I've known him for many years. He worked for nano. He's worked on a lot of these projects. I've always said that. But it's also irrelevant," Cuomo said. "If anyone does anything improper, they will be punished to the full extent of the law. Period. I was the attorney general of the state of New York. I put people in jail. Public integrity is job one."

McAndrew points out all the reports of Howe's proximity to Cuomo and his circle:

Published media reports have revealed that Howe paid for a Cuomo campaign fundraiser on Dec. 14 at the Fort Orange Club in Albany.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Howe exchanged emails with some of Cuomo's top aides.

On May 26, agents with state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office executed a search warrant at an office at SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and a college spokesman disclosed that the room had been used by Howe, who was a lobbyist for SUNY Poly. Schneiderman's office is investigating possible bid rigging on a SUNY Polytechnic contract.

Howe was captured in an October 2012 photo with the governor as Cuomo toured economic development projects in Syracuse. It's not clear why Howe was at the event. He is not among the 24 invited guests listed on the governor's official schedule.

Holding a fundraiser for the governor last December, engaging in back-and-forth emails with Cuomo's top aides in which he declares himself on the same "team," showing up at Cuomo economic development project photo ops as part of the Cuomo contingent - but Todd Howe's nothing to Cuomo and his associates.

This jive Cuomo spews about public integrity being job one is fooling the public, which either isn't paying attention to the massive investigation into the Cuomo administration or believes Cuomo's nonsense about integrity, but you can bet it isn't fooling investigators.

The connections between Howe and Cuomo and Company are pretty plain.

Perhaps Preet and Company will get to the bottom of them.

Corrupt Lobbyist Was Member Of Cuomo's "Team"

That corrupt lobbyist that Andrew Cuomo claims he doesn't know much about even though he was the hand model for Mario's portrait?

Turns out he's on Andrew's "team":

In the weeks since lobbyist Todd Howe emerged as a focus of federal and state investigations into New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's economic-development efforts, the governor has sought to distance himself from Mr. Howe and ordered the state to cut all ties with him.

Emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and interviews with people close to the administration indicate that, for years, Mr. Howe was in touch with Mr. Cuomo’s trusted circle, a status that gave him a central place behind the scenes with many of the people, institutions and projects that are now under scrutiny.

In an email from August illustrating how Mr. Howe held sway with the most important members in Mr. Cuomo’s orbit, Mr. Howe told one of the governor's top aides, Jim Malatras, that SUNY Polytechnic President Alain Kaloyeros “didn’t like it yesterday when I told him to get his ass over to the office and he was going to sign off on that statement you provided.”

“He’s on our team and he knows it,” Mr. Malatras replied to Mr. Howe after the two described shared frustrations with Mr. Kaloyeros. “He’s gotta…stop seeing enemies in our camp. There are none.”

More:

Emails exchanged among Mr. Howe, members of the Cuomo administration, SUNY Polytechnic officials and employees of Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, a prominent Albany law firm that represented SUNY Polytechnic, show Mr. Howe served as a vital line between the governor’s office and people involved in projects tied to SUNY.

Mr. Howe was head of the law firm’s now-closed lobbying arm and served as a consultant for SUNY Polytechnic.

In one March 2014 email exchange reviewed by the Journal, Mr. Howe appeared to joke with a Cuomo administration official about his role as a “minder” dispatched by the governor’s office to keep tabs on Mr. Kaloyeros and SUNY Polytechnic.

On SUNY Polytechnic matters, Mr. Howe also emailed and met with Andrew Kennedy, deputy director of state operations for policy, and Peter Cutler, a former spokesman for Empire State Development, the state’s economic development agency, according to emails and interviews. Mr. Cutler has said he was subpoenaed in the federal investigation. Messrs. Kennedy and Cutler didn’t respond to requests for comment.

And:

In the August email exchange about Mr. Kaloyeros, Mr. Malatras told Mr. Howe, “I don’t like the governor being disrespected.”

“Agree,” Mr. Howe wrote. “Not to reward bad behavior but you should think of something for him to do that builds him back up after this episode and boxes him in. Trust me I agree with you 100% but if this guy goes under [during] our watch we’ll get killed.”

For a guy Cuomo doesn't know much about, Howe sure was around in a lot of the office communications, wasn't he?

Howe's "office" at SUNY Polytechnic was raided by investigators last week - you can bet they're looking very closely at the connections between Howe, Alain Kaloyeros, Jim Malatras, Andrew Kennedy, Peter Cutler and the rest of Governor Andrew Cuomo's "team" too.

Federal Probe Into Cuomo Administration Casts Wide Net

Yancey Roy in Newsday:

ALBANY — The federal probe of New York development initiatives is broader than the Buffalo Billion projects, the highest-profile piece of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s upstate economic strategy.

Investigators have subpoenaed the governor’s office for records of communications with about 20 companies, a source confirmed, that were involved in projects in Buffalo as well as in Syracuse, Albany and the Hudson Valley. They’ve sought communications from high-ranking Cuomo officials, including Bill Mulrow, the governor’s secretary and top adviser; Jim Malatras, the director of state operations; and Gil Quinones, head of the New York Power Authority, the source said.

Beyond the governor’s office, investigators have subpoenaed agencies that regulate solar power and implement solar initiatives, the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute, which has been the guiding force in a number of state-backed high-tech ventures, and Empire State Development Corp., the state’s economic-development arm.

The named companies have been engaged in ventures ranging from a major solar-panel factory in Buffalo to a film hub in Syracuse to a dormitory in Albany to a power plant in Orange County. They also touch on a proposed “inland port” and redeveloping an old NYNEX building in Syracuse and loft apartments in Albany.

The companies, according to a source and to companies that have acknowledged separate subpoenas, include: six full-service development and real estate companies, three real estate firms, three engineering/architecture firms, two manufacturers, two lobbying firms, a power-plant company, a construction firm and a cellphone tower/communications company.

And the companies:

Federal investigators, probing state-backed economic initiatives, are seeking information regarding companies and New York State agencies, according to a source and some of the entities themselves, include those listed below.

• LPCiminelli, a Buffalo-based developer
• SolarCity, a solar panel company
• Carnegie Management, a NYC-based real-estate company
• Center Armory Associates, a Syracuse real-estate and development company
• CHA, an Albany-area engineering firm
• Columbia Development, an Albany-area developer
• Competitive Power Ventures, a Maryland-based power-plant company
• Conifer Realty, a Rochester real-estate and development company
• COR Development, a Syracuse developer
• Hueber-Breuer Construction, a Syracuse construction company
• Norstar Development USA, a Buffalo developer that also managed another company, Swan Street Lofts LP, named in a subpoena
• Pemco Group, a Syracuse real-estate company
• Potomac Strategies, a Maryland lobby and strategy firm
• Pyramid Netword Services, a Syracuse telecommunications systems company
• STV Group, a NYC engineering and architectural firm
• Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna/W.O.H. Solutions, a Albany law firm and lobbying subsidiary
• 3Gi Terminals, a company formed to develop Syracuse’s harbor
• Empire State Development Corp.
• New York State Energy Research and Development Authority
• NYS Department of Public Service (energy and utility regulator)
• State University of New York Polytechnic Institute

Cuomo has said repeatedly that the investigation is only focused on two of his former aides, Joe Percoco and Todd Howe, but given the multiple reports we have that the investigation is looking far and wide into Cuomo's economic development programs (see here and here, for another example), that Cuomo assertion is absurd.

In addition, there's a reported pattern of bid rigging in state contracts, with proposals written in such a way that only a specific contractor - always a Cuomo donor - can win them.

Subpoenas have gone out to the entities and individuals involved in those contractual relationships, and while it's possible that it was only Percoco and Howe pulling these shenanigans, given the number of subpoenas that have gone out, that seems unlikely.

A source close to the investigation told Fred Dicker that the public will hear something about all of this in July or August.

For now, Cuomo's got the public thinking he's an ethical prince, but given the scope and breadth of this investigation, it's very likely that when arrests come - and they will - Cuomo's going to have some very bad news cycles.

SUNY Office Raided, Net Closes In On Cuomo Cronies

State law ebforcement agents at SUNY polytechnic today, after serving search warrants on Todd Howe's office. pic.twitter.com/Od8qoGwhoR

— Jesse McKinley (@jessemckinley) May 26, 2016

From the NY Times:

ALBANY — Agents from the state attorney general’s office conducted a search at the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute here on Thursday, scouring an office once used by a lobbyist as part of an inquiry into possible bid rigging.

Agents arrived with search warrants and looked through an office used by Todd R. Howe, who has past ties to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat. Mr. Howe had worked as the president of the lobbying arm of Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, a prominent Albany law firm which had SUNY Polytechnic as a client. Agents also served a warrant to examine communications from Alain E. Kaloyeros, the school’s president.

Mr. Howe and Mr. Kaloyeros have recently emerged as central players in a multipronged federal investigation led by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, surrounding the Buffalo Billion, the governor’s signature upstate economic initiative. Mr. Howe was fired from Whiteman after news of the federal investigation broke last month.

The search — conducted by several agents, who looked into electronic files and removed at least two boxes of material — focused in part on a plan to build a dormitory near the university’s sleek campus. But according to an official with knowledge of the investigation, agents were also looking into other projects connected with SUNY Polytechnic, as well as several developers who had worked with the school.

They're looking at bid-rigging - that the proposal for a dormitory project was written up in such a way that only a Cuomo donor (Columbia Development, $195,000 to Cuomo since August 2013) could win it.

This would follow what appears to be an emerging pattern of rigging proposals for Cuomo donors, as happened with LP Ciminelli in the Buffalo Billion Project or NAH for a proposed for-profit charter school that got backdated under older rules that still allowed for for-profit charters.

Investigators are also looking at the relationship between Cuomo administration officials and COR Development, which gave the governor $325,000 through various individuals and entities and received $100 million in state contracts.

Something similar is happening with Cuomo's vaunted LaGuardia Airport redo, where Cuomo donors stand to do very well in plans set forth by the Cuomo administration, though there's no indication that investigators are looking at that - yet, at any rate.

Yesterday's raid suggests former Cuomo aide/Cuomo hand model Todd Howe is done for - it's only a matter of time before he's picked up and squeezed by the feds.

And since he acted as a "de facto chief of staff" to SUNY Poly guy Alain Kaloyeros and the feds are looking at Kaloyeros too, well, you'd have to think it's only a matter of time before the highest paid state employee gets picked up too.

Cuomo threw Howe and Kaloyeros under the bus this week, along with former aide/confidante Joe Percoco, saying that the the investigation was really limited to those individuals, but with news that the investigations by the U.S. attorney and the attorney general continue to widen (see here, here and here), that appears not to be the case.

There is still no evidence that this will reach as high as Cuomo, but here's the thing that should give some hope on that.

There's one string that links all of this disparate strands together and it is this: Cuomo donors gave money to Cuomo and got state contracts, grants, subsidies and/or other help in return.

This happened not once or twice but seemingly over and over and over.

Maybe Cuomo's got a firewall between himself and the rest of his cronies pulling these shenanigans, but he'd better hope it's a very strong firewall.

Because the authorities are looking not just at some corrupt individuals in basically a good system - they're looking at some corrupt individuals operating in a just-as-corrupt system.

And no pol has taken advantage of that system more than Cuomo, who had a huge war chest for his last re-election and even now is sitting on $16 million raised from dubious sources.

Federal Probe Appears To Go Right At The Way Cuomo Administration Works

Scott Waldman at Politico NY:

ALBANY — U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s inquiry into the state Department of Public Service has broadened in recent days, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.

A federal subpoena is now seeking all communication, including records of emails and in-person meetings, between senior state energy officials and top Cuomo administration officials, according to the sources. It seeks information on interactions between Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s former senior aide, Joseph Percoco, Department of Public Service chief of staff Tom Congdon, New York Power Authority president and CEO Gil Quiniones and Len Walker, who has worked as a director of special projects at NYPA.

The subpoena also seeks information about the organizational structure of the Department of Public Service from January 2012 to December 2015, sources said. That period includes most of the tenure of DPS head Audrey Zibelman, who was confirmed in June 2013. She is also chairwoman of the Public Service Commission.

Under Zibelman, Cuomo’s executive branch has taken a more direct role in the inner workings of the DPS and the decisions that come before the PSC, insiders say. At the behest of Cuomo, Zibelman is now conducting a series of investigations into energy companies in New York, including the Indian Point nuclear center. She is not named in the subpoena.

Cuomo wants you to think these investigations are only focusing on the malfeasance of two associates of his - he said so again yesterday:

Cuomo said the federal investigation is focusing on whether two people committed wrongdoing, his former deputy secretary Joseph Percoco, and lobbyist Todd Howe.

...

"I come from a tradition, started by my father, of 100 percent integrity in public service," Cuomo said.

"If there's any violation, I will be the first...I literally have put people in jail. No one is stricter than I am," he said.

But given the widening of the subpoena to include "all communication...between senior state energy officials and top Cuomo administration officials," it seems Bharara is looking at more than just malfeasance by Percoco and Howe.

And note that his investigation of DPS is looking at the "organizational structure" from January 2012 to December 2015, a time period when Cuomo subsumed much control of DPS through the hack he installed there, as well as that"decisions that come before the PSC."

That suggests Bharara's investigation has gone well beyond Percoco and Howe and right to the root of the way the Cuomo administration works - including the way Cuomo's executive branch seems to control decisions at entities that are allegedly independent of it.

In other Cuomo corruption news yesterday, Cuomo not only threw his two aides, Percoco and Howe, under the bus (as detailed in the quote above), but also Alain Kaloyeros at SUNY Polytechnic.

Cuomo was making an announcement in Syracuse when he was asked about the $325,000 in donations he took from one of the companies at the center of the U.S. attorney's investigation into his economic development programs:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday he had no input into SUNY Polytechnic Institute awarding $100 million in contracts to his top campaign contributor in Central New York, COR Development.

He said the more than $325,000 in campaign contributions that COR Development, its executives and COR subsidiaries gave to him had no influence in the awarding of contracts to COR.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in April subpoenaed Cuomo's office for records related to contracts given to COR Development as part of the prosecutor's investigation into Cuomo's marquee economic development projects in Upstate New York.

Bharara, the prosecutor who has already won convictions against former Senate leader Dean Skelos and Assembly leader Sheldon Silver, has issued subpoenas for records related to the Buffalo Billion projects, state contracts with COR Development for Central New York projects, and for a controversial energy project in Orange County, among other things.

Cuomo said the federal investigation is focusing on whether two people committed wrongdoing, his former deputy secretary Joseph Percoco, and lobbyist Todd Howe.

"The way it worked...the state didn't do any of the contracts," Cuomo said when asked about the COR contracts and donations. "It's all done through SUNY, the state university system. They are the ones that actually managed the contracting process."

"They are the ones who ran the contracts, ran the competitions, made the selections," he said. "I had absolutely nothing to do with that."

"It was done by SUNY," the governor said.

Shorter Cuomo: Hey, nothing to do with me, look at Alain Kaloyeros, the head of SUNY Polytechnic,

And yet, look at all the money awarded to COR directly through Cuomo:

SUNY Polytechnic Institute is run by Alain Kaloyeros, the highest paid state employee at $1.1 million in 2015. A board of directors that ran a nonprofit subsidiary set up by SUNY Poly requested proposals to build a nanotechnology building in the Syracuse area.

COR Development was the only company to submit a bid. The SUNY Poly subsidiary awarded COR a $15 million contract to build the Central New York Hub for Emerging Nano Industries, commonly called the film hub, in DeWitt.

Cuomo then awarded Central New York a $500 million award as part of the Upstate Revitalization Initiative contest between seven Upstate regions.

From that award, Cuomo directed that $90 million be used to pay for another contract to COR, to build a factory for Soraa, an LED lighting manufacturer, adjacent to the film hub.

Through his annual awards to regional economic development councils, Cuomo has also approved state grants of about $4 million to COR to demolish the former Kennedy Square housing project in Syracuse and about $4 million to COR to redevelop the former Mercy Hospital site in Watertown.

Cuomo is throwing as many of his cronies as he can to the wolves in order to save himself - it's Percoco, it's Howe, it's Kaloyeros!

Doubtful that this kind of "Not me, them!" thing will fool federal investigators looking into all of this.

And with news coming almost weekly that the investigations into Cuomo's economic development programs are widening, it's doubtful too that Bharara is just looking at Percoco, Howe and Kaloyeros for malfeasance.

As the NY Times reported yesterday, the link between all of this is quite simple - Cuomo donors gave money to Cuomo, got contracts, grants, subsidies or state help in return.

That's at the center of all of this, and while Cuomo wants you to believe that if there's any malfeasance in the donors/state contracting relationship, it was conducted by his under-investigation associates, not him, that seems absurd.

If this kind of thing only happened once, twice, even three times - you might say, "Oh, OK, sure."

But it's pretty clear that this kind of thing happened again and again and again, with Cuomo donors giving money to Cuomo and getting contracts, grants, subsidies or state help in return.

At some point, the feds are going to say, "How is it this happened again and again and again and Cuomo didn't know?

Cuomo Caught In Photo With Lobbyist He Barely Knows

Governor Andrew Cuomo claims he barely knows Todd Howe, the lobbyist and former aide at the center of a federal investigation into corruption in Cuomo's economic development programs statewide.

And yet, there is Cuomo, along with lobbyist Todd Howe, back in 2012, at a function in Syracuse involving one of the companies that has been subpoenaed by the feds in the investigation, COR Development.

Also in the photo is Cuomo's former aide, Joe Percoco, also at the center of the federal investigation.

In case you're having trouble seeing, here's a close-up:

That's Howe on the right, Percoco on the left - like twin devils, exerting their corrupting influence on the good governor.

Or, more likely, the fish rots from the head and the corruption emanates from Cuomo, who surrounds himself with people who think and act like the rules don't apply to them because Cuomo himself thinks and acts like the rules doesn't apply to him.

Tim Knause of Syracuse.com found this photo and gives context for it all here:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A smiling Todd Howe was photographed, standing in the background, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo enthusiastically shook hands with the president of COR Development Co. during an October 2012 visit to Syracuse.

...

The picture captures the role that Howe has apparently been playing for years in Syracuse economic development projects. Since the federal probe became publicly known, Howe's image has emerged as an affable guy to see for help in getting state funding or access to Albany power.

In the foreground of the 2012 photo, Cuomo shakes hands with Steven Aiello, president of COR, a Fayetteville company. COR is one of more than 20 companies about which Bharara has subpoenaed information from the Cuomo administration, according to reports.

...

The photograph, which comes from a public archive on Syracuse University's website, was taken Oct. 2, 2012, during the governor's tour of projects promoted by the Central New York Regional Economic Development Council. The council makes annual funding recommendations to the governor.

It's not clear why Howe was at the event. He is not among the 24 invited guests listed on the governor's official schedule.

Cuomo arrived that morning at Syracuse University in a state police helicopter, accompanied by Percoco and another aide, according to his official schedule. From there, they went to nearby Kennedy Square to begin the tour.

Cuomo stopped at the CNY Biotech Accelerator, the only new building at the former Kennedy Square public housing site. The biotech business incubator is a joint project of Upstate Medical University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Neil Murphy, then president of ESF, recalls giving Cuomo a tour of the building that day. In the photo, Murphy and David Smith, then president of Upstate Medical, are looking on as Cuomo and Aiello shake hands.

Murphy said he did not yet know Howe in 2012 and does not know why he was at the event. Murphy said he first met Howe in 2014, when college officials met with COR to discuss plans for a $20 million state research facility to be built at the Syracuse Inner Harbor, where COR is the developer. Howe was a consultant to COR at that time, Murphy said.

Howe's association with COR's Inner Harbor project dates back at least to April 2012, when Howe accompanied COR to a meeting with officials of the state Thruway Authority, which then owned the harbor lands to be developed.

...

After touring the Biotech Accelerator building, Cuomo and other officials got a briefing on COR's plans to develop Kennedy Square. (Those plans have yet to be acted on.) Then they boarded a bus to tour other project sites, including St. Joseph's Hospital and the Inner Harbor.

For years, Howe was sought after by Syracuse developers and others looking for state money or access to the Cuomo administration.

Last year, Howe represented two successive developers, the Pemco Group and Carnegie Management, who were angling for a $2.5 million state grant to renovate the former Nynex Building in Syracuse. Bharara has subpoenaed Cuomo's records related to both companies, the Buffalo News reported. Company officials have not responded to requests for comment.

Howe also represented 3Gi CNYIP Inc., a company that is trying to develop a cargo transportation hub in Manlius. 3Gi was included in Bharara's subpoena to the governor's office, the Buffalo News reported. Company leader Eckhardt Beck said he was not happy with Howe's work for his company, but does not think Howe did anything improper while representing 3Gi.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Bharara is looking at whether Percoco received illegitimate outside income from companies doing business with the state, including COR. On a state disclosure form, Percoco reported between $50,000 and $75,000 in payments from COR during 2014, a year during which he left Cuomo's administration to run his re-election campaign. COR officials have repeatedly denied paying Percoco.

For more on the players in the federal investigation into Cuomo's economic development programs, contracting, donors and former aides and associates, see this handy guide at Syracuse.com.

On, and that photo of Cuomo, Percoco and Howe?

That wouldn't be the first time they were all together in recent years.

As Jimmy Vielkind reported, Howe "hosted" a fundraiser for Cuomo in December 2014 and guess who came with offerings for the Cuomo camapign?

That's right - COR Development execs:

ALBANY — While Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been downplaying his relationship with Todd Howe, a lobbyist at the center of a federal probe of his administration, records show that Howe was steering developers to contribute to the Cuomo campaign as recently as five months ago.

Howe, then a lobbyist for a subsidiary of Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna, hosted a dinner gathering with Cuomo on Dec. 14 in a small upstairs room of the Fort Orange Club, a baronial brick retreat across the street from Whiteman’s Albany offices and up the block from the state Capitol.

The governor walked in at 8:30 p.m., accompanied by two of his top aides, Bill Mulrow and Joe Percoco. He was met by Howe, who worked as his deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, executives from COR Development and Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney, a key Republican ally of the administration, according to public records and four people familiar with the event.

The night’s $25,000 haul came in five checks from three COR executives, the wife of an executive and one of the company’s LLCs. They were deposited on Jan. 12. COR, a Syracuse-based firm, is building two research buildings for SUNY Polytechnic Institute at a business park the company owns in DeWitt.

While Howe’s work was only recently registered with state lobbying regulators, he was a paid adviser to both SUNY Poly and COR at the time of fundraiser. And Percoco, who has managed Cuomo’s political campaigns for more than a decade and shared an office with Howe during Cuomo's 2014 re-election effort, received at least $50,000 in consulting fees from COR that year — something Cuomo has said he did not know.

But that lobbyist under federal investigation for corruption?

Yeah, Cuomo doesn't know much about him or associate with him.