Percoco jury begins deliberations in bribery trial

Jurors began deliberations Thursday in the corruption trial of one-time Cuomo administration political enforcer Joseph Percoco after a prosecutor’s final summation in Manhattan federal court described his buddies-not-bribes defense to one alleged payoff scheme as a big fish tale.

Percoco is accused of getting bribed by energy executive Peter “Braith” Kelly with a $90,000 “low-show” teaching job for his wife Lisa. Percoco claims his wife’s lucrative part-time gig was in fact a favor based on a deep friendship he and Kelly formed during a 2010 Montauk fishing trip.

In her final hourlong argument, however, prosecutor Janis Echenberg told jurors the two men only went fishing together once in six years, and Kelly — whom Percoco referred to as “fat man” behind his back — wrote the Montauk trip off as a business expense.

Don’t swallow the story “hook, line and sinker,” she said. “It’s like every fishing story. The more you talk about it, the bigger it becomes.”

Percoco, 48, of South Salem in Westchester County, is accused of taking $35,000 from Syracuse developers Steve Aiello and Joe Gerardi in return for favors, and $285,000 through his wife’s job with Kelly’s company, Competitive Power Ventures, to boost a Hudson Valley power plant and a pollution-credit pact with New Jersey.

Both were clients of ex-lobbyist Todd Howe, the star government witness whose credibility took a hit after he admitted on cross examination that he lied to creditors and embezzled his law firm over two decades, and then was jailed during his testimony when he appeared to admit a new fraud.

Over four closing arguments this week, defense lawyers hammered Howe, but Echenberg called the fuss about him a “distraction,” insisting the key facts — that Percoco got money from Howe’s clients and did favors for them as Cuomo’s deputy executive secretary — were undisputed.

“Their best defense is to make you think it all comes down to Todd Howe,” Echenberg told jurors in Manhattan federal court. “ . . . They are asking for a free pass. They are saying ‘we dealt with a bad guy, so we should get away with it.’”

The five-week trial that put Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration under a sometimes embarrassing microscope unfolded under the shadow of a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision narrowing federal corruption laws by requiring clearer proof that officials agreed to exercise formal government power as part of a corrupt scheme, instead of just behaving unethically.

That ruling led to the reversal of convictions in the last two big Albany corruption cases brought by Manhattan federal prosecutors — one involving former Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver and the other, ex-Senate boss Dean Skelos, making Percoco’s trial a test run of sorts for the planned retrial of those cases.

Percoco’s case is not a simple one for prosecutors. In addition to the fishing-friendship defense, Percoco’s lawyers have said Howe’s word is the only proof Percoco and Kelly actually agreed to a corrupt deal in which Percoco would advocate for the company in return for his wife’s job.

Evidence at trial indicated Percoco later asked state operations director Howard Glaser to get involved in talks on new state generating facilities — which ended up yielding no benefit to Kelly’s company — and referred Howe to ask Glaser for help pushing an agreement with New Jersey on antipollution credits.

Prosecutors have said these actions, backed by Percoco’s clout, meet the new Supreme Court standard for “official action,” but defense lawyers say they fall well short. U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni told jurors Thursday that standing alone just expressing support was not enough, but pressuring another official could be.

The charges on the Syracuse scheme contain two additional wrinkles. Howe allegedly paid $35,000 to Percoco to work for Aiello and Gerardi in 2014, during a 9-month period when he and Percoco had left government to work for Cuomo’s campaign before returning to the governor’s staff in December.

But the Syracuse developers say they never knew their lobbyist hired Percoco. Prosecutors have to show Percoco reached an illicit agreement with them, and that he effectively still had state power when he received their money while out of office.

In return for the money, Percoco allegedly later pushed an underling to free Aiello and Gerardi from negotiating with unions at one state-funded project, helped cut red tape for the release of $4 million in state subsidies on another, and pushed a raise for Aiello’s son, who worked for Cuomo.

Deliberations in the case are scheduled to resume on Friday.