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.

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.

Federal Investigation Into Cuomo's Economic Development Program Expands Statewide

Tom Precious of the Buffalo News does an amazing job of putting together the various strands of the federal investigation into Governor Cuomo's economic development programs.

According to Precious, here is what U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has subpoenaed:

All documents relating to the October 2013 request for proposals for the Buffalo Billion program as well as a development project by the same state university-created corporation – Fort Schuyler Management Corp. – in Syracuse, along with a March 2015 RFP by a sister entity for a since-stalled dormitory project at SUNY Polytechnic in Albany;

• Details about certain actions taken by Percoco, Howe, several top current Cuomo advisers and the head of the state Power Authority, as well as Peter Cutler, a longtime Democratic operative from Buffalo who recently left Cuomo’s economic development field office in Western New York. The New York Post first reported that last week. Cutler last week confirmed he, too, had received a subpoena from Bharara’s office, though he declined to say what he is being asked to provide;

• Any actions by those individuals “for the benefit of” nearly two dozen companies, including LPCiminelli, the Buffalo construction company handling construction of the RiverBend complex, and Norstar Development USA, a Buffalo-based company headed by the former top housing czar in the administration of the late Gov. Mario Cuomo, the current governor’s father;

• Phone logs, visitor logs and calendar entries going back to January 2012 that might show meetings or contacts between administration officials and two dozen people or entities, including Ciminelli, Norstar, several Syracuse firms, a Brooklyn real estate developer, a Rochester real estate company, and two firms that, according to Percoco, paid him up to $120,000 in consulting fees sometime in 2014. Also on the list: Alain Kaloyeros, the SUNY Polytechnic president and Cuomo point person on the Buffalo Billion, as well as Howe.

In addition, Bharara wants to see what the administration has been saying internally about the now expanding Buffalo Billion probe. The subpoena seeks “all documents or communications related to the investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office” that are in possession of Cuomo’s office.

The broad subpoena has “driven the administration crazy,” according to a source close to the matter.

It seeks all documents Cuomo’s office has on file about Howe, the Washington lobbyist and Cuomo insider. He has been described as the go-between person between companies looking to expand to upstate ventures, such as the Buffalo Billion and high-tech projects in other upstate cities that SUNY Polytechnic, and the state’s economic development office oversee, according to sources.

Prosecutors want Cuomo’s office to also give them all documents relating to WOH Government Solutions, the lobbying entity Howe headed before he was recently fired, and its parent company, Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, the Albany lobbying and law firm. That firm has worn many hats, representing, for instance, SUNY Polytechnic or one of its subsidiary corporations and LPCiminelli.

Precious writes that "Bharara wants to know if key Cuomo people, past and present, did anything to “benefit” several companies that have been a part of various state-financed projects."

Now it's possible that he's looking at just Cuomo's minions like former aides Joe Percoco and Todd Howe or Suny Polytechnic's Alain Kaloyeros to see if and how they've enriched themselves off the contracting process with many of the companies subpoenaed in the investigation.

But it's also quite possible that he's looking at the donations Cuomo received from those subpoenaed companies, in which case Cuomo himself may have a bit of trouble.

See, it's a quid pro quo to solicit campaign donations in return for favors, contracts, tax subsidies or grants, so if there's any evidence anything like that occurred, Governor Cuomo would have some legal problems.

The most interesting instance where you could see Preet making that case is with COR Development and the report that came this week from Jimmy Vielkind at Politico NY.

The gist is this:

On December 14, 2015, Governor Cuomo attended a dinner hosted by Todd Howe, his former aide who was then a lobbyist for a subsidiary of Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna.

The dinner took place "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."

At the dinner?

Cuomo and Howe (who Cuomo said last week he doesn't know that well), two other aides (Bill Mulrow, the governor's secretary, and Joe Percoco, Cuomo's closest aide who is also reported to be under federal investigation for conflicts of interest and other corruption charges), Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney, a key Republican ally of the administration, and three executives from COR Development, a company of interest in Preet Bharara's federal investigation.

Cuomo took in $25,000 in five checks that night, three from COR executives, one from one of the wives of a COR executive and one from an LLC linked to COR Development.

COR Development has been Cuomo's biggest donor from Central New York, giving him more than $300,000 since 2010, including $50,000 in the last year.

And what did COR Development get in return?

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.

COR is also developing the Syracuse Inner Harbor, but that project has run into trouble. The city of Syracuse, which named COR as its developer, is now suing COR over tax breaks for the Inner Harbor project that the company obtained from Onondaga County's industrial development agency.

There's another interesting Cuomo angle here too.

Cuomo's D.A. buddy, William Fitzpatrick, who served as a Cuomo ally and apologist on the Moreland Commission that Cuomo shut down in 2014 (and whose wife needed to be reappointed to a judgeship by Cuomo), is investigating Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner (once a Cuomo ally, now a Cuomo enemy) over the lawsuit the City of Syracuse brought against COR Development.

That Fitzpatrick investigation appears to be both frivolous and retaliatory, judging by this piece of news from Syracuse.com:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -€“ Saying he does not intend to assist a "fishing expedition,'' an Onondaga County judge this week delivered a setback to District Attorney William Fitzpatrick and his efforts to investigate alleged wrongdoing at Syracuse City Hall.

County Court Judge Walter Hafner Jr. blocked Fitzpatrick's subpoena for emails, notes, drafts and other communications produced by Syracuse city lawyers, saying the DA made "no showing'' that the documents were part of any crime or fraud.

...

The district attorney, who criticized Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner for bringing a lawsuit against COR Development Co., the Inner Harbor developer, has launched an investigation into Miner and some of her political allies.

Among other things, Fitzpatrick is looking for evidence of alleged wrongdoing connected with what he called "phony affidavits'' filed in the lawsuit by two city councilors who are friendly with Miner.

But in his ruling to decide what documents city hall must turn over, Hafner said Fitzpatrick has not produced evidence of wrongdoing to justify his demand to see communications between city lawyers and other city officials. Most of those records are protected from disclosure by attorney-client privilege, the judge wrote.

In response to the district attorney's request that Hafner review all the city hall materials privately to determine whether any should be forwarded to the grand jury, Hafner called that proposal "patently absurd.''

"It is not . . . the function of this court to assist the district attorney in a fishing expedition,'' Hafner wrote.

Interesting how Cuomo's ally/apologist, William Fitzpatrick, is taking on Cuomo's enemy, Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner for Cuomo's biggest donor in Central New York, COR Development.

Here's Miner's rationale for the lawsuit:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Mayor Stephanie Miner set out Tuesday to kill the biggest Syracuse development in years – the $324 million Syracuse Inner Harbor project – after the developer went around the city to negotiate lucrative tax breaks from Onondaga County.

The mayor is trying to halt a transformative Inner Harbor project that she herself launched four years ago, after previous mayors tried and failed. The ambitious new waterfront neighborhood would have been her most visible accomplishment as mayor.

Miner's drastic move came after the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency was squeezed out of control over the Inner Harbor deal by a developer with strong ties to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and to Cuomo's allies in Onondaga County leadership.

"What you are seeing here is a clash of philosophy on economic development,'' Miner said in an interview today. She said the lawsuit aims to preserve the city's sovereignty over how the project gets done.

''It's about this: The developer doesn't get to set the terms and conditions of all the things that they want to do, which, in my experience is different from what has been done previous to my administration,'' Miner said.

Miner filed a lawsuit Tuesday that aims to halt the Inner Harbor project by nullifying the city's sale of the land to COR Development Co. She said COR should be required to meet significant local hiring and job-training quotas in return for any discount on property taxes.

Also should note that Cuomo's Republican ally, Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney (who just happened to be at the December 14, 2015 fundraiser with COR Development, Cuomo, Howe and Company), has launched attacks against Miner for the COR lawsuit, calling Miner "emotional" and hurting the City of Syracuse for "lashing out" after getting her feelings hurt.

Yeah, kid you not - that's what she said.

There's so much here in this COR Development story and at the center of all of it is not Todd Howe, the lobbyist and former aide to Cuomo who is reported to be under investigation by the feds, but rather one Andrew Cuomo, whose allies have launched attacks and investigations against one of his enemies after said enemy filed a lawsuit against his bestest donor in Central New York.

This Syracuse/COR story is just one of the strands Preet Bharara is following in his investigation - as Tom Precious reported in his Buffalo News story, there are many others as well.

But it's this COR Development strand that really intrigues the more one follows it, because you can see how the guy at the center of so much of the action is Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo told reporters last week that as far as he knows, the investigation is just related to two of his former aides, Percoco and Howe, thus sending out the not-so-subtle message that he himself is not under investigation.

Perhaps that's how the investigation started, but what do you think Bharara does when he gets all this interesting information and evidence in the COR Development strand?

Does he not continue to follow up to find out just how the tax breaks got handed out, why Stephanie Miner was pushed out of the deal and Cuomo's Republican ally, Joanie Mahoney, elevated, why Cuomo's D.A. ally/apologist is investigating Miner (and was it at the behest of Cuomo himself)?

Oh, so much to look at here, so much to marvel at.

It's the perfect Cuomoesque ratfuck that got pulled here, but in the end, if Bharara follows this Syracuse/COR strand to its very end, it may be Governor Cuomo himself who gets screwed.

Precious wrote that the Cuomo administration is being "driven crazy" by all the information Bharara is looking for.

Good - couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.

Bharara Jabs At Cuomo

Tom Precious in the Buffalo News, writing about the Skelos sentencing and New York's culture of corruption:

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara sought to bookend the Silver and Skelos sentences. “While Silver and Skelos deserve their prison sentences, the people of New York deserve better,” Bharara said in a statement.

His next comment captured even more attention.

“These cases show – and history teaches – that the most effective corruption investigations are those that are truly independent and not in danger of either interference or premature shutdown. That will continue to be our guiding principle in exposing and punishing corruption throughout New York,” Bharara said.

That was a not-so-subtle jab at Gov. Andrew Cuomo on two fronts. Bharara has been sharply critical of Cuomo’s decision in 2014 to shut down an anti-corruption commission at the time it had several open investigations.

The comment also comes after Cuomo two weeks ago said he was hiring a private lawyer to run an internal investigation of the Buffalo Billion economic-development program. That announcement came hours after Bharara issued a subpoena to Cuomo’s office – which left his administration reeling – for a range of information about the Buffalo Billion and other matters, including questions about possible wrongdoing by two longtime and trusted advisers to the governor.

We'll see if Bharara does more than jab at Cuomo in the coming weeks.

With more and more evidence surfacing in the Buffalo Billion case that starts to look very much like quid pro quo stuff, we may see just that.

Take yesterday, when it was revealed that Todd Howe, the lobbyist under investigation by the feds, hosted a fundraiser for Governor Cuomo on December 14, 2015.

At this fundraiser - held in a small backroom with just a few people - Cuomo took in $25K from COR Development, a company that has been subpoenaed in the Buffalo Billion investigation.

COR Development got some help from both a local government and state government:

The day after the fundraiser was a big one for COR: The Onondaga County Industrial Development Authority (OCIDA) approved a 15-year package of tax breaks on its $324 million Inner Harbor project, which will erect apartments, stores and a hotel at the site of a former barge terminal between Syracuse and the Destiny USA Mall on the south shore of Onondaga Lake.

...

 The December fundraiser also came one week after Cuomo announced that Central New York was one of three upstate regions to win $500 million in economic development subsidies. The funds were awarded in a contest among seven regions, with Central New York winning by promising to use the money for an inland port, to encourage municipal consolidation and encourage the nascent drone industry.

COR also got this:

Earlier this year, the state’s economic development entity directed $70 million of that funding to cover the cost of an LED factory that SUNY Poly and COR are building in DeWitt.

The LED factory and the company that will run it, Soraa, weren’t mentioned in the 88-page plan that won the state money. Officials at SUNY Poly and Empire State Development, though, insisted the project aligned with the region’s stated strategies.

If Politico NY is aware of this, you can bet Preet Bharara is as well.

Perhaps everything the governor did here was above board, totally fine.

For his sake, he had better hope so.

Because Bharara didn't sound too happy in his statement yesterday that was clearly aimed at Cuomo.

Cuomo Much Closer To Crooked Lobbyist Than He Admits

Governor Andrew Cuomo, responding this week to a question about his relationship with lobbyist Todd Howe, a former Cuomo aide who is under federal investigation in the Buffalo Billion Project case:

NORTH HUDSON, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sought on Tuesday to distance himself from a longtime associate who is now at the heart of investigations into fraud and improper lobbying.

Mr. Cuomo said the associate, Todd R. Howe, who worked for him and his father, was only a casual acquaintance whom he knew mainly though political events.

The governor also said he had no knowledge of the various legal and financial woes that Mr. Howe faced over the past decade or so, even as he parlayed his experiences alongside the Cuomo family and other political figures into a lucrative lobbying career in Albany, New York and Washington.

Mr. Howe worked for Mr. Cuomo when he was secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the late 1990s. Earlier, Mr. Howe spent a decade as an aide for Mario M. Cuomo when he was governor. Mr. Howe was also close with Joseph Percoco, Andrew Cuomo’s former executive deputy secretary and campaign manager, who is also under federal investigation.

Despite that résumé, Governor Cuomo said he knew little about Mr. Howe, including that he pleaded guilty to a felony theft in Washington in 2010.

“I wouldn’t call us close friends,” the governor said to reporters. “He worked for the state for a number of years, but I had no knowledge of his personal situation.”

Yeah, I dunno, not too sure about Howe, kinda knew of him, he did some work, but no too close, you know?

Except this story showed up in the Syracuse paper this morning:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -€“ How do you get the ear of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his administration? When Eckardt "Chris" Beck asked that question, hoping to advance his ambitious plans for a new cargo distribution hub in Manlius, he got this answer from a former Syracuse mayor:

Hire Todd Howe.

Howe, a longtime Washington, D.C., lobbyist with strong ties to the Cuomo family, is now under scrutiny as part of a sweeping federal investigation into New York economic development projects.

Howe was fired from his job as president of WOH Government Solutions after news of the federal probe became public. But until recently, Howe was reputed to be someone who could provide access to the governor's office.

When Beck asked former Syracuse Mayor Tom Young for advice in late 2013, Young recommended hiring Howe.

"The governor's office is so busy. I knew that I didn't really have the type of access that I thought would be necessary to keep them informed," Beck said. "Tom suggested Todd Howe."

...

Howe traded on his access to Cuomo and top administration officials, Beck said. During their first meeting, before Beck had hired Howe or explained his complex business plan, Howe indicated he had already discussed the project with the governor, Beck said.

"Todd said, you know, 'I've read your resume, and what the governor wants to know is, will you stay with this project until it gets to fruition?' '' Beck recalled. "I was taken aback by that."

Howe also bragged during the meeting that he was "good friends'' with Andrew Kennedy, then Cuomo's assistant secretary for economic development, Beck said. Kennedy, later promoted to deputy director of state operations for policy, is one of six Cuomo administration officials for whom federal prosecutors have subpoenaed records, according to published reports.

The governor's press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hire Todd Howe as a lobbyist, he'll talk to the governor about your project before you even have your first meeting with Howe himself.

If true, so much for Cuomo saying he didn't have much personal contact with Howe in recent years.

But there's more - much much more, via Jimmy Vielkind at Politico NY:

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.

Cuomo, in trying to distance himself from the lobbyist at the center of a corruption investigation, said this week that he wasn't too sure if Todd Howe worked on his re-election campaign or not.

Well, we know via Vielkind that Howe was working for Cuomo as little as five months ago.

Even better, the dinner gathering Howe hosted with Cuomo just five months ago helped Cuomo take in $25,000 from one of the companies subpoenaed in the Buffalo Billion corruption case.

So much for Cuomo's trying to distance himself from Todd Howe - or the companies subpoenaed by the feds in the corruption investigation.

The more journalists dig into this story, the more ties they find between Cuomo, the companies subpoenaed in the case and the lobbyist under investigation who Cuomo claims not to have had too much personal contact with.

The linchpin between all three?

Donations to Cuomo.

Companies Tied To Percoco Corruption Investigation Increased Donations To Cuomo

From the Wall Street Journal:

A former aide to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo who is a focus of a federal public-corruption probe reported at least $70,000 in income from two companies that had business before the state and had contributed to the governor’s re-election campaign.

The federal investigation is looking at payments that Joseph Percoco, Mr. Cuomo’s former aide and re-election campaign manager, reported he received from COR Development Co. LLC, a developer, and CHA, a civil-engineering firm previously known as Clough, Harbour & Associates LLC, and whether the firms received beneficial treatment from the state, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Percoco’s annual financial disclosure statements show he received payments from both companies in 2014. He received between $50,000 and $75,000 from COR and between $20,000 and $50,000 from CHA, according to the reports.

...

During the time Mr. Percoco reported receiving the payments from these companies, he spent a large portion of the year working as campaign manager for Mr. Cuomo’s 2014 re-election bid, a period that coincided with a significant increase in donations to the governor’s campaign from CHA.

Between 2013 and 2014, Clough, Harbour & Associates donated $160,000 to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign, according to filings with the state Board of Elections. Before that, the one reported contribution from the firm to Mr. Cuomo was $1,000 in 2010. The company gave another $35,000 to the governor’s campaign in 2015.

In 2013, COR executives and LLCs affiliated with the company contributed $187,500 to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign, up from $60,000 in 2012 and $15,000 in 2011.

Before January 2011, the only contribution from those parties was a $5,000 donation from COR President Steven F. Aiello, in 2010.

Steven F. Aiello has a son, Steven L. Aiello, who currently works for the state's Division of Military and Naval Affairs as a project assistant but previously worked for Cuomo's re-election campaign.

COR reiterated yesterday that they never paid Percoco but Percoco's JCOPE disclosure form says otherwise.

Perhaps Preet never gets as high as Cuomo in this matter, perhaps Cuomo continues to have plausible deniability around the corruption allegations, the increased donations, the outside payments, the rigged bids and so forth.

Jim Heaney at Investigative Post writes that even if that is so, Cuomo's governing style invited this kind of corruption:

In short, the Cuomo crowd is obsessed with secrecy and operates with the mistaken notion that the rules don’t apply to them. The governor may or may not have knowledge of the supposed misdeeds of some of his associates, but he has most certainly created an environment that’s made state government susceptible to official misconduct.

The erased emails, the use of untraceable Blackberry PIN communication, the ignored FOIA requests - all show Cuomo running his administration not like a governing official but like an organized crime figure who doesn't want to end up on a wire or with his emails subpoenaed.

And if Cuomo or his minions get offended by the organized crime analogy, well, too bad.

That's exactly how they run things in the Cuomo administration, as we're seeing more and more in the Buffalo Billion and associated investigations.

Somebody's Lying

From Tim Knauss at Syracuse.com:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – COR Development Co. officials on Saturday denied ever paying a cent to a former top aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. But today state officials released a disclosure form on which that aide, Joseph Percoco, declared between $50,000 and $75,000 in income from COR Development.

Today, COR officials stood by their assertion that the company never paid Percoco.

Percoco is reported to be one of the targets of a federal investigation into Cuomo's Upstate economic development efforts. He worked as a top aide to the governor for years, and took a leave of absence for much of 2014 to run Cuomo's re-election campaign.

On a state-mandated financial disclosure form filed with the Joint Commission on Public Ethics and made public today, Percoco listed COR along with the Cuomo campaign as one of his sources of income. According to the form, COR paid Percoco "consulting fees.''

The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is looking into whether Percoco received undisclosed outside income from companies doing business with the state, including COR, among other lines of investigation.

Asked about that report Saturday, COR officials said they never paid Percoco.

"COR Development did not hire, retain or pay Joe Percoco in any capacity, and intends to fully cooperate with any investigation into this matter," said Maggie Truax, speaking for the company.

Asked today about Percoco's filing, Truax said only that COR stood by its original statement. She offered no further explanation.

"Our statement stands as is,'' she said.

Yikes.

So COR Development says they never paid Percoco.

Percoco's disclosure form says they did.

Casey Seiler succinctly explained what that means:

Either Joe Percoco or COR Development is lying about his 2014 receipt of consulting fees. h/t @syracusedotcom pic.twitter.com/BnNw63Ucoh

— Casey Seiler (@CaseySeiler) May 2, 2016

I bet Preet Bharara might be able to get to the bottom of who is lying - and why.

Here might be another interesting thing for Preet to pursue:

They say bc Percoco went off state payroll in April 2014, a month before filings due to JCOPE, they didn't require he file for year prior.

— erica orden (@eorden) May 2, 2016

The more these Percoco matters get looked into, the more questions that get raised.

When it's journalists raising the questions, the Cuomo administration has been able to evade answering.

But of course, a US attorney with subpoena power is a whole different thing.

COR, btw, gave Andrew Cuomo a lot of money too:

Steven F. Aiello, COR Development's president and management member, has given Cuomo $65,000 in his own name since the beginning of the governor's first term in 2011, and his wife, Lori, gave $25,000. Three limited liability companies sharing a Fayetteville address gave a collective of more than $92,000, records show, and at least $65,000 in other gifts can also be tied to the company.

And, to make matters even more curious:

A young policy aide in the Cuomo administration, Steven L. Aiello, is Steven F. Aiello's son, a Cuomo spokesman confirmed. He had previously worked at the state Division of Homes and Community Renewal, and also worked as director of operations for Cuomo's 2014 reelection bid, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Subpoena away, Preet.