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Conflict of Interest

Firms with state ties paid N.Y. gov's ex-aide, forms show

Jon Campbell
USA TODAY NETWORK-New York
Joseph Percoco, left, enters the New York state Capitol's Red Room in April 2013 in Albany, N.Y., when he was a member of the senior staff of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right.

ALBANY, N.Y. — A former top aide to New York's governor was paid tens of thousands of dollars from a pair of firms tied to some of the governor's biggest economic-development projects.

Joseph Percoco, who was Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive deputy secretary until late 2015, received at least $70,000 total from CHA Consulting, based in Albany, and COR Development, based in Syracuse, N.Y., in 2014, according to his state-mandated financial disclosure form.

The payments were worth as much as $125,000, according to the form.

Percoco, who has worked for Cuomo in various capacities for nearly three decades and long has been regarded as one of his closest confidants, took a leave of absence from his state position for much of 2014 to run the governor's re-election campaign.

A resident of Lewisboro, N.Y., Percoco is at the center of a federal investigation into some of the Cuomo administration's headline-grabbing development programs, including the Buffalo Billion, a pledge to spend $1 billion in public money to help revitalize the state's second largest city.

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Percoco's lawyer, Barry Bohrer, could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. On Friday, he issued a statement calling Percoco a "dedicated and effective public servant" who is "proud of the service that he rendered."

CHA handled the engineering work for the RiverBend project, a major part of the Buffalo Billion initiative, The Buffalo News reported Saturday. The firm has held about 30 state contracts worth $71 million since 2000, not counting RiverBend.

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Michael McGovern, a lawyer representing CHA, said the company is "cooperating fully with the U.S. Attorney's Office and have been responding to their requests."

"Based on those discussions, it is our understanding that we are not a target of the investigation," he said.

Meanwhile, COR Development is a major Syracuse-area developer that is leading work on the city's Inner Harbor and is building a SUNY Polytechnic Institute facility in nearby DeWitt, N.Y. On Friday, a spokeswoman for the company told the Syracuse Post-Standard it "did not hire, retain or pay Joe Percoco in any capacity."

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The company had immediate comment Monday.

On Friday, Cuomo's office received a subpoena from U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's office, with Cuomo counsel Alphonso David also announcing that Cuomo's office had hired a former federal prosecutor to conduct its own internal review.

David acknowledged Bharara "has an ongoing investigation focused in upstate New York," commonly referred to as the Buffalo Billion and Nano investigation.

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"This investigation has recently raised questions of improper lobbying and undisclosed conflicts of interest by some individuals which may have deceived state employees involved in the respective programs and may have defrauded the state,” David said Friday.

Percoco left state employment late last year to become an executive at The Madison Square Garden Co. At the time, Cuomo said the move was a personal decision and not related to any investigation.

Jon Campbell writes for the Gannett Albany (N.Y.) Bureau; follow him on Twitter: @JonCampbellGAN

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