Education Link To Cuomo Corruption Scandals

Dunno if you knew this, but Joe Percoco's wife used to be a teacher.

Percoco, in case you don't know, was once a top aide to Governor Cuomo, so close to the governor that Andy called him a "brother."

He's also now under federal investigation for corruption - and so it appears is his wife, the ex-teacher:

A federal probe involving a longtime aide to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is examining an energy-company project and a company executive who oversaw it, according to people familiar with the matter.

A focus of the inquiry into the energy company, these people said, is Peter Galbraith Kelly Jr., senior vice president for external affairs for Competitive Power Ventures Holdings LLC, and a program his team oversaw called CPV Educates.

Competitive Power Ventures received a subpoena in recent weeks from the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, a person familiar with the matter said. The company has said it is cooperating with the investigation.

...

The CPV Educates program, which sent teachers and provided curriculum to schools to instruct on energy-related issues, employed Lisa Toscano-Percoco, the wife of former Cuomo aide Joseph Percoco, the company confirmed through a spokesman.

Ms. Toscano-Percoco, a former teacher, was involved in administering the program, the spokesman said.

As previously reported, the probe by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is examining whether Mr. Percoco, who for years was one of Mr. Cuomo’s closest aides, had conflicts of interest with or took official action in favor of companies with business before the state while those entities were paying him and his wife.

Ms. Toscano-Percoco didn’t respond to requests for comment. Mr. Percoco’s attorney, Barry Bohrer, declined to comment or say whether he also represents Ms. Toscano-Percoco. Mr. Bohrer has previously called Mr. Percoco a “dedicated and effective public servant.”

The feds want "email messages, course syllabi and other materials connected to CPV Educates" to see "whether the program did what it purported to do."

At roughly the same time Percoco and his wife were making the outside dough, they had a huge balloon mortgage payment on their $800,000 house and were spending $40,000 on a home theater system.

Gee, why couldn't they do all of that on a teacher's salary and Percoco's government pay?

In case you're wondering what all this might have to do with Cuomo, well, once again, it concerns that lobbyist/former aide he says he doesn't really know all that well:

Also working for Competitive Power Ventures during the period in which Ms. Toscano-Percoco was working for the company was lobbyist Todd Howe, who previously worked for Mr. Cuomo and his father, and whose relationship with Mr. Percoco is being scrutinized as part of the federal probe, according to people familiar with the matter.

Several years ago, Competitive Power Ventures hired Mr. Howe to help set up meetings with people in New York who might help move the Hudson Valley power plant forward, a person familiar with the matter said. The person said Mr. Howe hasn’t been employed by Competitive Power Ventures in the past year.

Boy, I bet Todd Howe's got a lot of stories to tell prosecutors if they ever squeeze him.

Howe's name comes up again and again and again in all these stories.

And, in case you missed it, Howe helped Cuomo take in $25K from one of the companies subpoenaed in the corruption investigation, with Cuomo right there in the room.

Cuomo couldn't have missed what was happening because, well, there weren't many other people in the room other than Cuomo, Howe and the people handing over the checks:

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.

It's amazing how connected this all is, isn't it? 

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.

The Skelos Reality Show

It was quite a show at the Skelos sentencing yesterday:

Great photos here – and nice wrap-up by @rebeccadobrien on dramatic Skelos & son sentencinghttps://t.co/4XXA6op8dS pic.twitter.com/67LBTEhs9k

— erica orden (@eorden) May 13, 2016

As Dean Skelos leaves court, a man in his group grabs and throws a woman's cell phone. Watch: pic.twitter.com/mT8iwzeHOr

— Heather Kovar (@HeatherOn10) May 12, 2016

More:

A nephew of crooked ex-state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos was arrested Thursday for grabbing a Daily News reporter’s phone, throwing it across the street and grabbing her wrist following the disgraced pol’s sentencing alongside his son.

The blue-suit-wearing goon, Basil (Billy) Skelos, pushed another photographer and shouted “You wanna go?” as he exited Manhattan Federal Court shortly before grabbing the reporter.

Billy strong-armed the reporter around 1 p.m. in full view of cameras outside the courthouse and remained silent as she and other reporters asked why he chose to pick on a woman.

The brute continued to yell at the reporter, Victoria Bekiempis, as she spoke to a police officer.
The 27-year-old bozo from Lynbrook, L.I., was charged with misdemeanor assault and given a desk appearance ticket at the 5th Precinct stationhouse.

The former lacrosse player at Sacred Heart University sang his uncle’s praises in a letter to Judge Kimba Wood seeking leniency ahead of the sentencing.

And even more:

As Gail passed Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was sitting in the back of the courtroom throughout the sentencing Thursday, she told the federal prosecutor, “You can go to hell.”

 And even a little more:

Dean Skelos’ disgraced son is on the outs with his family — ­everyone but Dad.

Adam Skelos’ personal life has been destroyed by the corruption scandal, which prompted his wife, Anne Marie, to file for divorce, his lawyer said at Adam’s sentencing Thursday.

Adam’s ex is now planning to move in with Adam’s mom, Gail, along with their two autistic sons.

“He’s lost his wife, and he’s likely to lose his home,” lawyer Christopher Conniff told Judge Kimba Wood, who sentenced Adam to 6¹/₂ years behind bars.

Well, maybe he still has his mistress?

In recordings played at trial, jurors heard Adam discuss talking to his mistress via the video app FaceTime — and buying his wife a puppy so she’d let him stay in Manhattan instead of returning home to Long Island after work.

What a family, eh?

There's a reality show waiting for these people - from Dean and Gail to Adam and Basil (Billy) Skelos.

I'm thinking something like a mix between Growing Up Gotti and Mob Wives.

Percoco Was In On The De Blasio 2014 Campaign Fundraising Shenanigans

The NY Times reports just how much the Cuomo campaign was involved in Team De Blasio's 2014 campaign fundraising to take the state Senate for Democrats:

Mr. de Blasio and several aides, along with a number of consultants and labor union operatives, find themselves caught up in a criminal investigation focused on how they directed money into some of the contested races.

The inquiry focuses squarely on the de Blasio team’s effort to use county committees to deliver more money than would be allowed through contribution caps that apply to individual candidates.

But the Cuomo campaign was nonetheless involved in the overall effort to help the Democrats retake the Senate, at least behind the scenes, according to documents and correspondence reviewed by The New York Times, and to people briefed on the effort.

Meetings were held, plans drawn up and lawyers consulted. And perhaps most important, money was raised — in the end, well over $1 million.

A senior aide to the governor, Joseph Percoco, took part in some of the earliest organizational and planning sessions with a top de Blasio administration official and campaign lawyers for the mayor and the governor, the materials reviewed by The Times show.

Mr. Percoco also received central legal and operational documents on how the fund-raising effort would be carried out. Three weeks before the election, he corresponded with Emma Wolfe, one of the mayor’s closest advisers, about the procedures for paying for hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign advertisements and mailings for Democratic candidates in targeted races, according to the materials.

The disclosures seem to suggest that Mr. Percoco, who was one of the governor’s most trusted senior staff members until he left the administration in January, may have been aware of some of the conduct that is now under scrutiny, and that is at the heart of the fund-raising inquiry. His lawyer, Barry A. Bohrer, declined to comment.

Yet when Cuomo's hack at the Board of Elections referred the matter to the Manhattan D.A. for investigation, the Cuomo links were conveniently left out.

Imagine that.

Gee, why would that have happened?

Oh - right.

Dean Skelos Sentencing Today

Don't think those under investigation - or those rumored to be under investigation - in the Buffalo Billion case aren't watching this:

Dean Skelos was once one of the most powerful men in New York State, but on Thursday, he faces the prospect of a lengthy prison sentence for his corruption conviction last year.


Although Skelos has asked the judge for leniency for him and his son Adam, their fate will be determined at a time when scandal is fresh on people's minds. Todd Howe, an Albany lobbyist, and a former top lieutenant to Governor Andrew Cuomo, Joe Percoco, are being investigated for their role in an economic program boosting the city of Buffalo.

"With what is going on now with Mr. Percoco and Mr. Howe and Mr. de Blasio, added to what we just saw happen with Mr. Silver and what's going to happen this week with Mr. Skelos, you just reach a tipping point. And we may have reached a tipping point," said Barbara Bartoletti of the League of Women Voters.


Skelos was convicted on eight counts of bribery, which included using his public office to lean on companies to provide income for Adam Skelos.

Shelly Silver got a 12 year sentence last month.

Skelos is expected to get something in that range as well.

Fun times - with Silver and Skelos going to prison and investigations ongoing in both the Cuomo and de Blasio administrations.

I bet the governor is watching this very, very closely today - especially as the more they look into the Buffalo Billion stuff, the more connections they find between him and corruption.

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.

Success Academy: Not Quite Ready For Primetime

Eva Moskowitz sells her Success Academy prison school network as the solution for all that ills public education and has plans to expand her network from 34 schools serving 11,000 students to 100 schools serving 50,000 students in the next few years.

There are some problems with that plan, however, as Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY foundthrough Success' own risk management assessment:

Before the network can seek to replicate its model elsewhere, Success is seeking to demonstrate that it can operate at scale in New York City.

The internal documents cited in this article illustrate some of the challenges that have already resulted from its early growth spurt to 30 schools, including considerable staff churn and uneven quality among schools within the network.

“Our network has mushroomed with giant departments, and yet we are always out of breath and can barely do the work to support 11,000 kids,” reads an internal memo on Success’s departmental goals for the 2015-2016 school year. “We certainly will not be able to support 50,000 kids in 100 schools unless we make dramatic changes and improvements.”

And in the risk assessment, a member of the senior management team expressed concern about at least the perception of a widening distance between management and teachers in the course of expansion.

“It is perceived that there is a lack of humanistic connections between upper management and employees,” said one of the interviewees.

“My colleagues and I would benefit from a better understanding of the rationale behind our strategic expansion,” a departing employee said in an exit interview, also obtained by POLITICO New York. “Do we want to prove that our model works across demographics? That there is high parent demand? That we are the solution for NYC? Knowing this will give authentic purpose to our work.”
But the risk most often cited by senior managers was the network’s ability to recruit and retain its existing staff, including school principals and top executives.

“We don’t have a qualified talent pool to fill the spots left by the departing school leaders,” said one executive in the risk assessment. “We are already in the territory of putting people in leadership role[s] who are not quite ready yet.”

“We are growing so quickly that it’s almost impossible to come up with a robust leader pipeline in order to ensure high-quality leadership for every new school,” said another.

It's interesting, at the very time Moskowitz should be taking full advantage of her nemesis, Bill de Blasio, and his corruption scandal woes, Eva finds herself on the defense with the leak of these internal documents to Shapiro at Capital NY.

Two consecutive negative stories about Success - here was yesterday's on the allegations that Success cheats its way to high test scores - and Success' problems put out for all to see.

I wonder, is Eva having a nice day?

Cuomo: Not My Job To Hold My Employees Accountable For Corruption

That was essentially the message yesterday when Cuomo talked to the press:

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday he has no regrets about his decision not to ask a former top aide more about his outside consulting arrangements in 2014, which have now come under scrutiny in a federal investigation.

Speaking to reporters in the Adirondacks, Cuomo said the "onus" was on Joseph Percoco, his former aide and campaign manager, to follow the state's ethics laws.

Percoco, long one of Cuomo's most loyal confidants before his departure for the private sector early this year, reported received between $70,000 and $125,000 in consulting payments from a pair of firms with business before the state in 2014, when he was off the state payroll running Cuomo's re-election campaign.

"If you're a state employee, you know the ethics rules," Cuomo said. "You know the legal regulations. The onus is on you to follow them, not for you to be questioned and then follow them."

Last week, Cuomo acknowledged Percoco had told him he may perform outside consulting work while off the state payroll. But the governor said he never asked who Percoco was accepting fees from.

In short, employees who work for Governor Cuomo get to hold themselves accountable because the "onus" is on them to follow the rules.

If only Cuomo had the same system for teachers and schools.

Alas, due to his APPR teacher evaluation system, we are micromanaged and scrutinized in everything we do.

One set of rules for Cuomo employees (and Cuomo himself) - another set of rules for teachers and schools.

Two More State Agencies Subpoenaed In Cuomo Corruption Probe

Man, the subpoenas just keep coming:

Two state agencies that supported and provided key approvals for state energy projects involved in a federal investigation into improper lobbying and undisclosed conflicts of interest have been subpoenaed as part of the probe, according to a source.

The state Public Service Commission and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority were issued the subpoenas last week, the source said.

Spokespersons for both agencies said they “cannot comment on a pending investigation.” A spokesman for Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which is conducting the investigation, also declined to comment.

On April 29 federal investigators issued a subpoena to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office seeking records and documents related to a probe of one of the governor’s signature economic-development projects called the Buffalo Billion. Investigators also sought records involving a power plant proposed in the Hudson Valley by Maryland-based Competitive Power Ventures.

Governor Cuomo offered a new line of defense in a Q&A with reporters today:

.@NYGovCuomo is sounding more and more like Sergeant Schultz. https://t.co/gVt9xdNNoI pic.twitter.com/tNXrOrEkmU

— Jim Heaney (@JimHeaney) May 10, 2016

Also, Sullio noticed the following:

Cuomo blinks when he's lying. https://t.co/iXTenPK5SU

— Sullio (@sullio) May 10, 2016

Awful lot of subpoenas out to state agencies, the governor's office, former Cuomo aides and associates, current Cuomo associates, Cuomo donors - the list goes on.

Notice what all the links are between all of these individuals and entities?

Cuomo.

Internal Report Of Success Acadmies Finds Cheating On Tests, Morale In The Toilet

I vowed not to do any education stories anymore unless they were linked to the corruption scandals facing de Blasio and Cuomo, but this one is too good to pass up:

Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz did not approve of the finding — made by an “ethnographer” she hired to study her rapidly expanding charter school network — that some teachers at the high-performing network might be responding to the enormous pressure placed on them by cheating.

So Moskowitz, Success's combative founder, deployed senior managers to inform the staffer, Roy Germano, that he was banned from visiting schools for the remainder of the year. Moskowitz disparaged Germano to other employees, according to a memo written by Germano in July 2015 and obtained by POLITICO New York, and he was told to halt his research projects immediately.

Germano was fired last August, approximately a month after the report was completed, and is now a research scholar at New York University.

Germano’s reports and memo, along with a trove of other documents obtained by POLITICO — a separately commissioned internal draft risk assessment report, a compilation of exit interviews, and internal Success staffing records, among other documents — paint a picture of a growing enterprise facing serious institutional strain in the form of low staff morale, unusually high turnover, and the kind of stress that could drive teachers to exaggerate their students’ progress.

“It seems possible if not likely that some teacher cheating is occurring at Success on both internal assessments and state exams,” reads the July report by Germano, which was titled “Research Proposal: An Investigation into Possible Teacher Cheating.”

While Germano did not conclusively prove that teachers were cheating, he reports multiple incidents of Success staffers informing him that Success teachers may have prepared students for specific questions on internal tests, allowed students to copy answers from each other, scored their own students higher than students in other classes, and pointed to incorrect answers on exams and warned students to rethink their answers.

He compared Success’s data-driven, high-stakes environment to the state of the Atlanta public school system when a widespread cheating scandal was uncovered there. Germano also suggested that Success introduce measures to spot check and prevent cheating, including regular reviews of exam scoring, interviews with teachers, a statistical analysis to track how often students changed incorrect answers to correct ones, and anonymous reporting channels.

“The credibility of the organization could be greatly undermined if a third party were to detect cheating among our teachers and leaders before we detected and began dealing with it ourselves,” Germano wrote. In that same report, Germano wrote, “there are no rewards at Success for ethical teachers who try their best and fail.”

Moskowitz did not react well to the report's findings, reportedly disparaging Germano, then firing him and banning him from Success.

Many of us have long questioned Success Academies test scores, especially on tests they grade themselves.

This report calls for much more scrutiny into the Success test score "miracle".

You can bet the powers that be won't like that because Moskowitz is the poster child for the "No Excuses!" charter sector.

As with Michelle Rhee and the cheating scandal that enveloped her in D.C., there will be powerful people who look to defend Moskowitz both in and out of public to make sure her scores never get the scrutiny they deserve.

That's why it's up to the press to dig into this story and talk to the teachers and staff, both current and former, to get to the bottom of the story.

Andrew Cuomo's New Line Of Defense In The Corruption Scandals

The NY Post:

Gov. Cuomo on Monday threw a former longtime aide and two embattled appointees under the bus — by refusing to defend them after The Post obtained excerpts of a blockbuster subpoena that shows they and three other current or former members of his administration are under investigation by the feds.

A statement from Cuomo’s counsel, Alphonso David, said the governor had “full confidence” in three top-level staffers named in the subpoena, calling them “nothing more than victims or witnesses to a potential crime.”

The statement of support failed, however, to mention Joe Percoco, Cuomo’s former deputy executive secretary and campaign manager, and two other officials named in the subpoena: New York Power Authority President and CEO Gil Quiniones and former Economic Development Corp. spokesman Peter Cutler.

Percoco’s name was omitted despite his having been close to Cuomo’s family. At the funeral for Cuomo’s dad, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, the governor called Percoco “my father’s third son, who sometimes I think he loved the most.”

The aides and associates he defended were Director of State Operations Jim Malatras, Secretary to the Governor Bill Mulrow and outgoing Deputy Director of State Operations for Policy Andrew Kennedy.

Here was the administration statement of defense:

“Bill Mulrow, Jim Malatras and Andrew Kennedy are honorable public servants and the governor has full confidence in them,” David said. “The subpoena does not focus on any current member of staff but rather third parties who may have exploited the state; to suggest otherwise is wrong, reckless and irresponsible.”

Notice the new line of defense out of the administration: "The subpoena does not focus on any current member of staff but rather third parties who may have exploited the state; to suggest otherwise is wrong, reckless and irresponsible.”

Ah, but one of those "third parties" who "may have exploited the state" was Andy's very close former aide, Joe Percoco, who was STILL working unofficially for the governor in late March during the budget negotiations, as was reported by the Wall Street Journal (see here and here.)

So, this line of defense that it is "third parties" who are not currently working for the governor who "may have exploited the state" - well, that's just jive.

The fact is, all of these people named in the subpoenas were Cuomo cronies, they seem to have acted with as little oversight as possible both while they worked for Cuomo and afterwards, and now that they're in the sights of the U.S. attorney, Cuomo's throwing them under the bus and making like it's got nothing to do with him.

But of course it has everything to do with him and when the arrests come, the line of defense that these people are "third parties" who don't work for the administration anymore isn't going to fly.

Especially not when some of these guys look to deal with prosecutors for less time and tell tales on people above them.

And before I end, let's not forget that Alain Kaloyeros - Dr. Nano - the head of SUNY Polytechnic Institute and a key player in Cuomo's Buffalo Billion Project and other economic development programs, has also been subpoenaed by the feds.

Cuomo wants you to forget that fact too, even as he wants you to forget that some of his other cronies - "third parties" now - once belonged to Cuomo's very own party, in some cases just six weeks or so ago (see one Joe Percoco.)

We're getting a new line of defense out of Cuomo almost every day now (see here for yesterday's) - shows you just how desperate he's getting.

Wide Ranging Subpoena Served On Cuomo's Office

Fred Dicker in the NY Post on just what Preet Bhrara was looking for when he hit Governor's Cuomo's office with a subpoena for information related to the Buffalo Billion investigation:

The Post, meanwhile, learned that Bharara’s subpoena was far more sweeping in its demands for information from Cuomo’s office then had previously been known.

The subpoena, excerpts of which were obtained by The Post, sought “phone logs, visitor logs, calendar entries between January 2012 and present that show meetings with any’’ entities on a list of 26 individuals and companies.

The subpoena also demanded information on “any actions taken by” Percoco, Secretary to the Governor William Mulrow, state Operations Director James Malatras, Buffalo-area Democratic operative Peter Cutler and other Cuomo aides related to the companies for which Percoco and Howe worked, as well as for several other companies connected to the governor’s high-profile “Buffalo Billion’’ economic-development efforts.

It also seeks “any documents concerning’’ two not-for-profit economic-development companies set up in conjunction with SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering and its president, Dr. Alain Kaloyeros, a key “Buffalo Billion’’ adviser.

Talk about wide-ranging, holy cow!

Four years of information, phone logs, visitor logs, calendar entries, etc between January 2012 and the present involving 26 individuals and companies - including the governor's secretary, Bill Mulrow, his state operations director Jim Malatras and other aides.

Note too, how Bharara is looking for information related to "Buffalo-area Democratic Operative Peter Cutler."

Whatever Bharara is looking at, it ranges from Buffalo to Albany.

Speaking of searches, the Post also reports this:

The FBI raided the homes of two men close to Gov. Cuomo as part of the widening federal probe into Albany corruption, The Post has learned.

Agents carted off evidence from the Westchester home of former top Cuomo aide Joseph Percoco and the Washington, DC-area home of lobbyist Todd Howe, who was fired last week after Cuomo’s office barred state officials from any contact with him, sources said.

A Manhattan federal judge approved search warrants for at least three locations, and the raids were carried out two weeks ago, a law-enforcement source said.

The feds were able to secure the warrant for Howe’s out-of-state home by arguing that he conducted business within the Southern District of New York, which covers Manhattan, The Bronx and the northern suburbs, the source said.

The governor's line of defense now is that Percoco was telling potential clients he had the administration's approval for representing outside private clients that had business before the state (even though he didn't) and that, in any case, once he left the state payroll and went to work for Cuomo's re-election campaign, he never intended to return to government work.

That line of defense showed up in a Ken Lovett piece at the Daily News as well as the Fred Dicker piece linked above.

We'll see what Bharara finds related to that - or what he can squeeze out of people.

Like the organized crime figure he is, Cuomo uses untraceable communications so that he doesn't leave much of a trail for investigators.

But that doesn't mean others around him were always compliant.

And this is just the stuff we know Bharara is looking for - there's also the contract stuff related to the Buffalo Billion Project that he's looking at, as well as Cuomo's donors.

Dicker writes Cuomo's freaked out by the investigation:

Sources in the Cuomo administration said the governor appears “increasingly nervous and anxious’’ about Bharara’s probe, and some noted that Cuomo has almost completely disappeared from public view during the past weeks as the scandal began to unfold

He ought to be anxious and nervous about all of this.

This is such a wide-ranging investigation and Cuomo has run an administration that has been ethically-challenged from the beginning, so the more Bharara looks into things, the more likely it is that he finds something that reaches very, very close to Cuomo - and maybe even reaches Cuomo himself.

Nerves Rattled Throughout New York State Over Steven Pigeon Investigation

Bob McCarthy in the Buffalo News:

This is a nervous Sunday for political types around Buffalo and New York State.

The same pols who read the lead story in Thursday’s editions of The Buffalo News – the one reporting state investigators were mining reams of tips from the emails of political operative Steve Pigeon – must now be asking questions of themselves.

“Did I ever send an email to Steve Pigeon?” so many New Yorkers are asking today. “Did I ever ask a favor? Did I ever write something to come back and haunt me?”

It’s a nervous Sunday all right.

That’s because Pigeon, the former Erie County Democratic chairman and self-appointed power broker, has been wheeling and dealing around these parts for 25 years. And whatever he has conveyed via email during much of that time now rests in the hands of state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

“This thing has an unbelievable number of tentacles,” said one source familiar with the situation.

Maybe that’s why it took almost a year for Schneiderman, the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the FBI to figure out just what they had when they hauled computers out of Pigeon’s waterfront condo (and the homes of fellow operatives Steve Casey and Chris Grant) back on May 28.

And if Pigeon is the saving type who kept all his emails, the Schneiderman crew has spent the last year reading some most interesting stuff.

According to McCarthy, we're probably looking at bribery charges against Pigeon and State Supreme Court Justice John Michalek.

But given the "tentacles" that emanate from Pigeon, it could get much, much worse for various politicians and  players around the state - including Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Just something to keep an eye on.

Fred LeBrun: Bharara Is Focused On Governor Cuomo's Office

Fred LeBrun in the Times-Union this morning:

A week ago Friday late in the day, Preet Bharara finally dropped the other shoe on Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

A flurry of subpoenas from federal prosecutor Bharara, the first served on the governor's office, left no doubt New York's chief executive and his extensive inner circle are now included in an ever broadening corruption inquiry involving the letting of state contracts and illegal conflicts of interest and lobbying.

...

We already know there's more than smoke here, in terms of improprieties by the governor's people, although the governor's office has been trying desperately to distance itself from both Howe and even Percoco.

There's been a blizzard of damage control to cover a flurry of subpoenas. A leak to a downstate tabloid to try to control the inevitable bad news from the onset broke the news.

A deliberate attempt to blur the focus of the inquiry from primarily the governor's office to include nine-month old inquiries into Buffalo contractors and the SUNY Polytechnic Institute followed.

That's all misdirection. Preet Bharara's focus is on the second floor of the Capitol.

When Cuomo has talked about the problem of corruption in the past, he always talks about it as if it has nothing to do with the executive branch and is only located in the legislature.

The news of the investigations into Cuomo's people - both current (Alain Kaloyeros at SUNY Poly) and former (Todd Howe and Joe Percoco) - exposes what jive that is.

As for the governor himself, well, there is certainly the appearance of corruption in his campaign fundraising, as Chris Bragg and Casey Seiler at the Times-Union reported this morning:

The federal subpoena received by Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration in late April seeks information about any actions taken by certain Executive Chamber officials that might have benefited several major developers in New York, according to a person with knowledge of the subpoena.

The companies include Conifer Realty of Rochester, COR Development of the Syracuse area and Norstar Development, a company based in Ontario, Canada, that has significant operations in Buffalo. Several other companies were identified in the subpoena, which was issued by the office of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara.

...

While each of the companies is engaged in a wide range of projects with state and local governments, all three are involved in the development of affordable housing — an industry that has quietly proven to be among the governor's most generous supporters.

Read the piece and you see the pattern - Cuomo gets donations, donors get subsidies, tax benefits and/or contracts.

Steve McLaughlin pointed out this morning that this pattern with Cuomo is not new:

Cuomo's corrupt #Pay2Play tactics are not new. It's all he knows. Want a state contract, tax break or grant? Pay him https://t.co/Cl8ZoTY3Io

— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) May 8, 2016

Some people think that Bharara will never get as far as Cuomo, that Cuomo is too smart to get caught in all of this, even as his minions like Kaloyeros, Percoco and Howe appear to be going down (and maybe Steven Pigeon in Buffalo too), but Fred LeBrun writes that is still to be determined:

After two terms of watching how this governor works, in the shadows, with as little accountability as he can get away with, it is small wonder the culture he's created hasn't caught up with him earlier.

And, it's hard to imagine a notorious micromanager like Andrew Cuomo being caught totally blind by the doings of his brother Joseph, and very old friend Todd. That just doesn't pass the sniff test. Again, to be determined though.

And just in case you aren't convinced that Preet Bharara has expanded his probes beyond the legislature, well, there was this warning from the U.S. attorney a few weeks back:

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara issued an executive warning Tuesday, making clear that his push to clean up corruption isn’t limited to the state Legislature.

“We will keep looking hard at corruption in our legislative branch, as we have been,” Bharara said during a keynote speech at Common Cause New York’s annual gala at the University Club in Midtown. “But not just there: in the executive branch, too, both in city and in state government.

“Executive offices in government are far from immune from the creeping show-me-the-money culture that has been pervading New York for some time now.”

Given how many stories there are of Cuomo donors getting contracts, grants, tax breaks, subsidies or even vetoes around the same time they're giving money to the governor, at the very least the appearance of a show-me-the-money culture pervades Cuomo's administration.

Whether Bharara can connect any of this to Cuomo, as LeBrun writes, that's to be determined.

But make no mistake - that's exactly what Bharara is trying to do.

He said as much back in April.

Cuomo's Completely Rigged And Corrupt Government

An excellent summary of the various strands in the Cuomo scandals by Jon Campbell - here's the key quote I took from it:

There are “so many red flags” that it’s “hard to know where to start,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, a group that’s been critical of Cuomo’s economic-development work.

“The exact same lawyers and consultants are representing both the government and the businesses that are either getting contracts or subsidies,” Kaehny said. “You have the same people sitting on both sides of the deals again and again and again. It just really reeks of a completely rigged and corrupt process.” 

Now, Bharara’s inquiry — as well as an internal investigation launched by Cuomo — appears to have focused on a small handful of individuals and companies with plenty of business before the state and myriad ties to Cuomo himself.

That includes Percoco, Cuomo’s former trusted aide; SUNY Polytechnic Institute President Alain Kaloyeros, who led many of the state’s economic-development projects; and Todd Howe, a former Cuomo staffer who until Friday led Whiteman’s Washington subsidiary.

Indeed, that's the pattern in these scandals.

The boys were making money coming and going, both the "consultants" like former Cuomo aides Todd Howe and Joe Percoco as well as the Cuomo campaign itself (via campaign donations from companies doing business with the state.)

And of course the companies were getting millions in contracts.

I don't know that this ever reaches as high as Cuomo, but even if he is never carted out in handcuffs on criminal charges, there is more than enough evidence emerging in these scandals that he has allowed the hen house to be run by the wolves and ought to be run out of Albany on the first Amtrak to Westchester.

Cuomo Associate Is Quite The Grifter

The NY Times did a piece on Todd Howe, the former Cuomo aide who is now in the sights of federal prosecutors looking into Cuomo's economic development projects around the state.

Here's what you learn about Howe:

3 foreclosures from 1999-2006
$400,000 in federal tax liens against him
Numerous lawsuits for not paying his bills
Sued for not paying back a $90,000 home equity loan
A 2003 bankruptcy
Prosecuted for failing to return a rental car
And last but certainly not least, a felony theft conviction for cashing a $45,000 check at TD Bank without the actual check (yes, the bank eventually caught him on it...)

Here's Howe's connection to the Cuomo economic development programs:

As the federal inquiry became public recently, Mr. Howe, 55, was fired from his job as president of WOH Government Solutions, the lobbying firm where he had worked for 14 years. Among WOH’s clients are COR Development Company, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, the developer LPCiminelli and CPV Valley L.L.C., which is building a power plant in the Hudson Valley — four entities that have been linked to central figures in the investigation. Mr. Howe was listed as a lobbyist for at least one of those clients.

COR, CPV and LP Ciminelli are all Cuomo donors who received contracts from the state for various work related to Cuomo's economic development programs.

Nice that WOH Government solutions had a such a deadbeat lobbying for them.

Nice too that Cuomo had this guy as his deputy chief of staff back in the day at HUD.

I mean, who wouldn't want this kind of guy working for them?

And Cuomo says teachers need accountability?

Cuomo Ally Is Target Of Grand Jury Probe

Steve Brown from WGRZ:

BUFFALO, NY-- 2 On Your Side has learned a special grand jury will meet Monday to consider evidence in a long-running political corruption probe.

The investigation appears to be targeting long-time political power-broker Steve Pigeon.
This all began last May,  when Pigeon's condo and two other homes were searched by authorities.

After months with no new reported developments, it appears the investigation is now  accelerating.
Just this week, news broke that State Supreme Court Judge John Michalek has been questioned by investigators.

The Buffalo News has reported the investigation centers on whether Michalek asked Pigeon for help securing a job for a relative, at the same time a Pigeon associate had a multi-million dollar case pending before the judge.

Cuomo link to Mr. Pigeon:

If Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo seems obsessed with all things Buffalo in the months leading to his re-election campaign, those familiar with the governor point to his rejection by the voters of nine western counties in 2010.

Perhaps that’s why Cuomo is turning to G. Steven Pigeon, one of his oldest – and most controversial – Western New York allies, for fundraising, politics and even policy, according to several sources

The former Erie County Democratic chairman is taking on more assignments from Cuomo and is telling political leaders here of a larger role, according to at least half a dozen highly placed sources with knowledge of the situation.

A total of about 10 people interviewed for this article did not want to be identified, citing Pigeon’s controversial history and the governor’s penchant for keeping such matters within a close circle of advisers. And some say they doubt Pigeon’s claims of closer ties to the governor.

But there may be no more telling sign of a key role for Pigeon than his new and close relationship with former Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, the regional economic-development official from Buffalo who represents the governor in many matters here.

Pigeon and Hoyt personified political enmity during their respective days as party chairman and assemblyman, but observers now say the mere fact that the longtime archfoes are working together for Cuomo’s interests is significant.

Wheeeee!!!!

Four Cuomo associates and/or cronies under investigation by either the feds, the state attorney general or both (Pigeon, Alain Kaloyeros of SUNY Poly and two former aides, Joe Percoco and Todd Howe.)

Doesn't end, does it?

Flanagan Suggests De Blasio Should Lose Mayoral Control Of The School System

From the NY Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s prospects of getting the Legislature to renew his control of New York City’s schools were thrown into doubt on Thursday, when the leader of the State Senate issued a statement harshly criticizing Mr. de Blasio’s performance at a hearing on the issue.

“Too often, the mayor showed a disturbing lack of personal knowledge about the city schools,” the Senate majority leader, John J. Flanagan, a Long Island Republican, said in a statement. “In addition, he has left too many unanswered questions and failed to provide specifics on many of the issues raised by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.”

“Until that occurs,” Mr. Flanagan added, “I will not entrust this mayor with the awesome responsibility of operating the New York City school system.”

According to the Times, de Blasio was asked a question about our back pay which he did not have a ready answer for.

That, along with the political animus state Senate Republicans have for de Blasio, may be the underlying rationale for the letter from Flanagan yesterday, which the Times described as a "sneak attack" since there were few fireworks at the hearing in Albany between de Blasio and state Senate Republicans.

In any case, before you get excited thinking de Blasio will lose mayoral control of schools and Farina's going to be shown the door the way she has her administrators showing the door to veteran teachers, understand that John Flanagan takes a lot of money from the ed deform lobby, including StudentsFirstNY.

Whatever scheme Flanagan and Cuomo cook up to replace mayoral control (or even tweak it), it will not be to our benefit but rather be some kind of change that benefits the charter school sector and Eva Moskowitz in particular.

De Blasio Retains A Criminal Lawyer

Beginning to circle the drain:

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday that he has retained a prominent criminal defense lawyer to help him cooperate with state and federal corruption probes surrounding City Hall and his 2013 campaign.

The lawyer, Barry Berke of the Manhattan firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, was previously retained to represent de Blasio’s campaign, and will continue in that role. He is a de Blasio appointee to the Lincoln Center board of directors.

City Hall has been besieged by reports that U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office has been investigating possible city favors for donors ranging from developers to foes of Central Park horse carriages, and the lifting of use restrictions on a health facility after its sale to a connected developer.

Bharara has also been probing NYPD corruption, and a separate state-federal probe is looking into de Blasio’s efforts to funnel big contributions to Democratic state Senate campaigns. Subpoenas were served on City Hall last week.

For once this week, the de Blasio corruption news beats the Cuomo corruption news.

This one's a doozy.

It suggests de Blasio's got real trouble - not just political trouble but the kind that can get you an orange jumpsuit.

And here's more de Blasio corruption news:

The feds and the Manhattan DA are probing whether straw donors contributed to Mayor de Blasio’s 2013 campaign for City Hall, The Post has confirmed.

Investigators want to know if people were reimbursed or given cash to pass along to the campaign in their names, in an effort by the actual donors to avoid the city’s $4,950 cap on individual contribution, sources said.

Suspicious donations to de Blasio include nearly $10,000 apiece from two commercial drivers for a beauty-products wholesaler, according to DNAInfo.com, which first reported the straw-donor investigation.

The men gave nearly $10,000 each to de Blasio’s mayoral run and transition team in less than two months — and one of them told DNAInfo he never donated anything at all.

Rafael Zepeda, who lives in Corona, Queens and listed himself as a driver for Primary One LLC on his donation card, contributed $5,000 to the de Blasio campaign on Oct. 27, 2013. That donation was made during a Washington Heights fund-raiser that Zepeda never attended, records show. He was later reimbursed $50 since the contribution was over the limit.

Zepeda then forked over another $4,500 to de Blasio’s mayoral transition committee in December 2013, according to records.

While he initially said he personally made the donations, he went back on that hours later, saying they weren’t from him.

His Primary One co-worker, Jose Zepeda, of Elmhurst, also made two donations: one for $5,000 at an October 2013 fund-raiser and another for $4,500 in December 2013. It was unclear if the Zepedas are related. Both drivers work for Smali Amanollahi, a wealthy de Blasio donor. All told, Amanollahi, his relatives, employees and associates chipped in at least $55,000 to de Blasio’s campaign between October 2013 and December 2013, DNAInfo reported. “These guys are making very good money,” Amanollahi told The Post.

“They get their raises every year.”

He added that he’s forked over “a lot of money to a lot of people.”

A de Blasio spokesperson said, “We are reviewing the donations and will take any appropriate action.

Straw donors - that's the thing that got John Liu.

May not reach the level of de Basio himself, but it adds to the criminal investigations he and the people around him are under.

The more investigations we get, the more likely he's finished politically.

What is this now, like five? Six?

That's an awful lot to have going on and still run for re-election with a straight face.

The BOE memo referring criminal prosecution for Team de Blasio's 2014 state Senate work was politically motivated, as was the leak of said memo.

And the tabloid coverage of the scandals enveloping de Blasio is also politically motivated - not just at the Post but also the Daily News.

That said, there are just too many investigations going on, too much corruption smoke swirling around de Blasio these days for there not to be an actual fire or two.

Investigative Post Finds More Double Dealing In Cuomo's Buffalo Billion Project

I'm posting three, four, five times a day and I'm STILL not able to keep up with all the Cuomo corruption news.

Here's another item, courtesy of Investigative Post (which broke the Buffalo Billion story initially and may have interested the US attorney in investigating it):

Questionable dealings by officials managing the Buffalo Billion didn’t begin or end with the selection of a politically wired developer to oversee the construction of the SolarCity plant in South Buffalo.

In fact, before LPCiminelli started developing the SolarCity facility, the state-affiliated development corporation managing the Buffalo Billion awarded a $20.3 million contract to design the plant to an architecture firm whose president, Thomas Birdsey, sat on the board of a closely related entity.

Both development corporations were controlled by Alain Kaloyeros, the so-called nanotech guru and Gov. Cuomo’s point person on upstate economic development projects.

It wasn’t the first time EYP Architecture & Engineering had been chosen by the development corporations to work on major projects. Since 2013, the firm has been awarded work on at least five projects across upstate, both during and after its president’s stint on one of the development corporation’s boards.

“For any non-profit, it’s a huge red flag for self-dealing and corruption to have board members doing significant business of any kind whatsoever,” said John Kaehny, executive director of good government group Reinvent Albany.

Meanwhile, the law firm of Whiteman Osterman Hanna has been collecting fees from both the state-affiliated development corporations and the companies they were doing business with.

In the case of the Buffalo Billion, the firm has represented both LPCiminelli, as lobbyist, and the Fort Schuyler Management Corp., which has overall responsibility for the SolarCity project, as attorney.

The law firm’s government relations subsidiary is headed by Todd Howe, a longtime Cuomo associate currently under scrutiny from U.S Attorney Preet Bharara as part of a wide-ranging investigation.

The takeaway from all this?

“There’s all sorts of overlapping ties and roles in the SUNY Poly empire. Everywhere you turn it seems you bump into the same set of consultants and companies,” said E. J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for Public Policy.

Go on over to Investigative Post and read the whole piece by Charlotte Keith.

It's more evidence that the further investigators and journalists dig into Cuomo, his donors, his minions, his contracts and his projects, the more interlinking stuff they find - all of it dubious at best.