Gov pal’s wife, clients not vetted

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo says he didn’t know about the criminal activity taking place within his administration, but others say even if that’s true, there were enough warning signs that could have brought the matter to light long before investigators stepped in.

“This is a red flag for the governor that his management of the government needs an overhaul,” said Blair Horner, of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Cuomo’s top aide and longtime friend Joseph Percoco (below left with the governor), who was slapped with federal bribery charges last week, had reported on his state ethics disclosure forms that his schoolteacher wife had been paid by a hard-to-trace entity. That turned out to be Competitive Power Ventures, which was seeking state approvals for a project in upstate Orange County.

Cuomo officials admitted they didn’t look into Lisa Percoco’s job, saying it would have been unusual to ask about a spouse’s work.

Percoco, after leaving the state payroll in 2014 to run Cuomo’s campaign, had also told the governor he was going to take on outside consulting clients. Two wound up having business before the state, including COR Development. Two co-owners of that Syracuse firm were charged last week in the federal pay-to-play and bribery criminal complaint that ensnared nine Cuomo associates.

Cuomo previously said he never asked Percoco specifically who his clients were at the time or when he came back to the administration in late 2014.

Cuomo and his staff also dismissed media stories of potential bid-rigging pertaining to his signature “Buffalo Billion” upstate economic development program, privately trashing the writer instead.

Only after it became clear that Percoco and another longtime Cuomo loyalist, lobbyist Todd Howe, were the targets of the federal probe did the governor announce he was hiring a former federal prosecutor to conduct an internal review of the situation.

Cuomo was not implicated by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, nor was he said to have been complicit.

A source close to the governor denied Cuomo and his staff dropped the ball, arguing that it’s easy to find signals after prosecutors outline their case.

“There’s a difference between saying in hindsight you can see how it happened and saying that at the time you missed warning signs,” the source said.

The source said Percoco was someone Cuomo had complete trust in and had no reason to expect he was doing anything improper.

The source also argued that SUNY Polytechnic Institute Alain Kaloyeros, who was also charged in the scheme last week, had built up credibility by having worked under five governors. When Kaloyeros was asked internally about the potential Buffalo Billion bid rigging report, his excuse that there was a typo in the bid request was accepted, he said.

Another source close to the governor brought up Cuomo’s late father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, noting at least two people close to him were caught up in scandals that never extended to Cuomo himself.

“We’re not the first people this type of stuff has happened to,” he said. “No one questions Mario’s integrity.”

lll The Cuomo campaign is not saying whether the governor will return hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations it received from two people and their companies who were charged with crimes last week.

Cuomo’s office referred questions to state Democratic Party Executive Director Basil Smikle, who did not return a request for comment.

lll Bharara added to his impressive list of government corruption cases last week, but his people won’t say if the crusading U.S. attorney wants to stay on under the next President.

“He has said he loves the job, but he has not campaigned for reappointment,” Bharara spokesman James Margolin said. “He does not want to get involved in the political process. He wants to stay below the radar on that issue.”