This quiz goes from A to Ziti
It’s been a big week for corruption in New York, what with the sentencing of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s former top aide Joe Percoco to six years in federal prison, and the news that the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics is working night and day to catch wrongdoers.
Whoops! Correction to that last paragraph: It should have noted that JCOPE is working ’round the clock to find a semicredible legal excuse for failing to investigate Percoco’s egregious use of state resources to benefit Cuomo’s 2014 campaign, as revealed in his recent trial.
Percoco and others will be headed to prison soon, but the instrumentalities that aid and abet graft in our state are staying put. The governor, flush with a commanding primary victory, has pretty much thrown in the towel on reform in the same way that a child who has just been given a banana split is less incentivized to clean her room.
All we as citizens can do is educate ourselves on these two interlinked topics. In that effort, I present this quiz:
1. Three of these quotes are from emails sent by Percoco or his close friend, bagman/consultant Todd Howe. Can you spot the quote that’s a line from the crime drama “Donnie Brasco”? a. “Handle Fat Boy carefully.” b. “Enjoy your vacation. I will send my kids in the back yard with the garden hose.”
c. “Thirty years I’m busting my hump. What have I got?”
d. “Family. You don’t ___ with members of the family.”
2. Get a pencil! Can you connect the two former executive directors of JCOPE to the posts they held with Cuomo prior to joining the ethics panel and the jobs handed to them by the governor after they left JCOPE? Ellen Biben (JCOPE 2011-’13) Letizia Tagliafierro (2013-’15)
a. Court of Claims judge b. Deputy Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs and Special Counsel to the Governor
c. Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, Executive Chamber d. State Inspector General 3. Who was the inspiration for the nickname “Herb,” traded incessantly by Percoco and Howe?
a. U.S. President Herb Hoover, the subject of Percoco’s high school senior thesis
b. Tijuana Brass bandleader Herb Alpert, who introduced Howe to the woman he eventually married
c. Herb Landon, 1990 gubernatorial candidate who lost badly to Howe and Percoco’s onetime boss, Gov. Mario Cuomo
d. Philosopher Herb Marcuse, who once wrote that “Those who devote their lives to earning a living are incapable of living a human existence.”
4. Which of these professionals did Todd Howe not bilk as his personal finances spiraled out of control? a. banker b. lawyer
c. dog walker d. ski instructor e. carpenter
5. Before hiring Cuomo administration attorney Seth Agata as JCOPE’S third executive director, how did the panel describe the job search it expected to mount to find a replacement for Tagliafierro? a. “rigorous” b. “national” c. “exhaustive” d. “wide-ranging among all the people who have previously worked for governors named Cuomo.”
6. How did Cuomo describe former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office launched the upstate development investigations, in an August profile in New York Magazine?
a. “a dogged investigator who, to my great regret, uncovered a mess in my own house”
b. “not a friend to upstate development, if you catch my drift”
c. “a scalp hunter and that’s all he was”
d. “a real Nosey Parker who couldn’t even hold onto his gig”
7. Which of these arguments did JCOPE make in a recent court filing in which it attempted to rebuff a complaint filed by state Republican Party chairman Ed Cox and GOP gubernatorial candidate Marc Molinaro concerning Percoco’s alleged use of taxpayer resources to benefit Cuomo’s 2014 campaign?
a. the complaint was “rife with spelling errors”
b. the complainants failed to say “Simon Says”
c. it relied too much on investigative news reports
d. all the sworn testimony and data collected by federal investigators was “very, very complex”
8. Which of these references to “ziti” (money) in the correspondence between Percoco and Howe is invented?
a. “Ziti gets cleared on the 15th ... Merry Christmas.” b. “Need 7500 boxes of ziti.” c. “Hot town, Herb — summer in the ziti.” d. “Don’t burn the ziti.” 9. JCOPE’S recent court filing said it shouldn’t be forced to take action on complaints if they rely on secondhand sources such as media reports. In the case of Percoco’s alleged misuse of taxpayer resources to benefit the 2014 campaign, who are potential firsthand witnesses whose complaints would theoretically carry enough weight to prompt a JCOPE investigation, maybe? a. Joe Percoco b. Andrew Cuomo c. JCOPE Executive Director Agata, who in 2014 was an Executive Chamber lawyer and campaign volunteer
d. Linda Lacewell, another Executive Chamber attorney and 2014 campaign volunteer e. All of the above
Answers: 1. c; 2. Biben: a, d, Tagliafierro, b, c; 3. c; 4. d; 5. b; 6. c; 7. c; 8. c; 9. e.