What the Supreme Court’s new review could mean for Albany’s Culture of Pairing

Joseph Percoco and his preference for “ziti.” Alain Kaloyeros, flashy tech executive found guilty of fraud. Joseph Bruno and a bad racehorse named Christy’s Night Out.

Albany has delivered countless stories of corruption over the past decade, with one figure after another – from congressional speakers to state Senate leaders – convicted in abuse-focused trials. public trust. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan staunchly pursue corruption charges in the capital, revealing a culture of secrecy and self-dealing.

But in key rulings over the past decades, the US Supreme Court has narrowed down laws governing corruption, leading to overturning the convictions of at least three prominent New York lawmakers. And with the court’s statement on June 30 that it will review the high-profile 2018 convictions of two men closely identified with the administration of former Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, legal experts The court argues that judges may be willing to further limit what constitutes compounding – and therefore what is illegal in the New York capital.

“Courts want to prevent the criminalization of what they consider normal politics,” said Daniel C. Richman, a professor of criminal law at Columbia Law School and a former federal prosecutor. “But its narrow conception of what should be a federal crime often seems to overlook everything except selling one’s office for a sack of cash.”

In one case the Supreme Court will consider, Mr. Percoco, a former senior Cuomo aide, had plead guilty accepted more than $300,000 in bribes from executives working for state-owned enterprises. On the other hand, Mr. Kaloyeros, the state’s former nanotechnology chief who is widely recognized for making Albany an unlikely hub for high-tech research, was found guilty along with three business executives. in a bid-rigging scandal involving the so-called Buffalo Billion, a revival plan signed by Mr. Cuomo.

On July 1, Judge Valerie E. Caproni of the Federal District Court granted the bail request of Mr. Kaloyeros and the three executives pending Supreme Court review.

The decision to review the cases demonstrates the difficulty of maintaining such convictions in an era where the Supreme Court has placed federal corruption prosecutions under increasing scrutiny.

Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor, said: “It is skepticism or perhaps discomfort that the law should draw a line between money in politics and crime in a system. full of money aimed at influencing the government and completely legit. who teaches criminal law at Duke University in North Carolina.

Decades ago, courts narrowed the scope of the law used in corruption cases, making it the crime of “depriving others of the invisible right to honest services”, restricting use this law for offenses involving bribery and kickbacks.

Following the ruling, a federal appeals court in New York ignore the accusation of Mr. Bruno, the former Republican leader of the state Senate, who was convicted in 2009 in Albany of two counts of mail fraud. Among those accusations were he received tens of thousands of dollars in a bribe from an Albany businessman disguised as a payment for Christy’s Night Out, a deeply unsuccessful racehorse. Mr. Bruno was retrial in 2014 and acquitted.

This trend continued into 2016, when the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the conviction of Bob McDonnell, former Republican governor of Virginia, further narrowing down the types of advocacy actions that could constitute corruption. . Courts say there must be formal and specific actions taken by an official, like filing lawsuits or making administrative decisions, not just regular political trials like arranging court meetings. meeting.

Following that ruling, the convictions of two of New York’s most prominent lawmakers – Sheldon Silver, the once powerful Democratic speaker, and Dean G. Skelos, another former Senate majority leader of the Republican Party, was vacated on appeal. Both men were retrial, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

And two years ago, in the so-called Bridgegate scandal, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the convictions of two associates of the Republican Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, of trying to punish one of the Christie’s political rival by causing traffic jams on the George train. Washington Bridge. The court called the act an abuse of power but not a federal crime.

The prosecutions of Mr. Percoco and Mr. Kaloyeros, along with Mr. Silver and Mr. Skelos, are all part of a widely heraled campaign against official corruption led by Preet Bharara, US attorney for the Southern District of New York. York, and his successors, led to convictions and prison sentences for a variety of state legislators.

“When one politician after another after the elected politician is charged with a crime, people lose faith,” Mr. Bharara said in 2015, a day after the allegations against him. Mr. Bo was announced.

The possibility that New York’s latest rulings are now being imposed has made Albany’s veteran observers – so notorious for his carelessness that it has an online museum devoted to it — even more discouraged, especially in the face of often weak efforts by New York lawmakers and governors to root out lawlessness and corruption.

Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, a good government organization.

Percoco’s trial cast a shadow over Mr. Cuomo’s administration, although the governor was not accused of any wrongdoing. Email exchanges between Mr. Percoco and an associate show them joking and fretting over the bribes, which they call the codename ziti, a term taken from the HBO drama “The Sopranos” “.

“I don’t have ziti,” Percoco wrote in a text message. In another, he asked, “Where is Ziti???”

Judge Caproni, before sentenced Mr. Percoco to six years in prisonsaid, “I hope that this verse will be heard in Albany.”

The Supreme Court has agreed to partially review Mr. Percoco’s case, in which he was found guilty of performing actions to benefit a Syracuse-area developer in exchange for $35,000 in bribes. . His lawyers have argued that the acts occurred after Mr. Percoco left government to run Mr. Cuomo’s re-election campaign.

The attorney general’s office, which represents the federal government at the Supreme Court, asked the court to decline the review, arguing that Mr. Percoco remained effective as a public official after temporarily leaving office. department. It said he kept his desk and phone in the governor’s operating room and “maintained control of official affairs.”

Mr. Percoco’s attorney, Yaakov M. Roth, said in a statement this week he was grateful that the case would be reviewed and that he hoped the court “will exonerate Joe and confirm, in general , the basic boundary between public officials and private citizens . “

In the other case brought up for review, Mr. Kaloyeros and three executives – Louis Ciminelli of LPCIminelli, a Buffalo construction management firm, and Steven Aiello and Joseph Gerardi of COR Development, a Syracuse-area company — were both found guilty of a conspiracy to direct lucrative state contracts in the Buffalo Billion project to companies by executives.

Prosecutors said the defendants modified the proposed requirements to include qualifications that guarantee contracts would go to the companies. Left in the dark about the plan is Fort Schuyler Management Corporation, a nonprofit real estate arm of SUNY Polytechnic Institute, who oversaw the contracting process.

The prosecution is based on a legal precinct known as “control,” in which the government argues that the fraud involved not money but information of economic value, with Fort Schuyler being the victim. individual, not knowing about bidding manipulation.

“This case gives Fort Schuyler some control over who they do business with and on what terms,” said Professor Richman, who noted that he had consulted with Mr Gerardi’s defense team. .

In asking the court to review the case, the men’s attorneys argued that there was no evidence that the program deprived Fort Schuyler of its fair price or quality of workmanship. They say federal fraud laws only prohibit schemes that target money or assets, not just for information extraction.

Mr. Ciminelli’s attorney, Michael R. Dreeben, said he was grateful the court would address “their challenge to the validity of the rights control theory used in prosecution.” Michael C. Miller, Mr. Kaloyeros’ attorney, said his client and legal team “look forward to the Supreme Court’s decision in this important case.”

Alexandra AE Shapiro, an attorney for Gerardi and Aiello, said she was pleased the court “will consider placing limits on the broad ways in which some prosecutors have applied related fraud statutes.” state.”

“It is one thing for prosecutors to focus on individuals with the intent to cause economic harm, but it is another for them to spin theories about something abstract and far-fetched,” she said. like ‘control’,” she said. “Everybody benefits when the law has clear limits.”

The attorney general’s office and the US attorney’s office in Manhattan both declined to comment.

Jesse McKinley contribution report.