Bid-rig suspects blame ‘gov’s guy’
The former head of SUNY Polytechnic Institute and three upstate developers pointed the finger Monday at a lying lobbyist with “extraordinary” access to Gov. Cuomo’s office on the first day of their trial in the Buffalo Billion bid-rigging scheme.
Lawyers for the four defendants — SUNY Poly ex-Presidentl Alain Kaloyeros; Louis Ciminelli of the Buffalo-based LPCiminelli, and two execs from Syracusebased Cor, Joseph Gerardi and Steven Aiello — claimed the man at the center of the Manhattan Federal Court case, Todd Howe, is not expected to testify.
“Todd Howe had extraordinary relationships with the governor,” Kaloyeros’ attorney Reid Weingarten said. “The reason he’s not going to testify is that he had a double life. He was a master criminal . . . . He deceived virtually every relevant person in this courtroom.”
Kaloyeros is charged with rigging state contracts for Cor and LPCiminelli, defrauding the economic arm of SUNY Poly.
Howe, once an Albany powerbroker, helped Kaloyeros maintain a good relationship with Cuomo’s office as the academic spearheaded economic development initiatives broadly known as the Buffalo Billion.
Howe was also paid by Cor and LPCiminelli for his influence in the Capitol.
Prosecutors indicated they’d show the jury Howe’s emails — but not the man himself.
“This is a case about lying and cheating to get hundreds of millions in state contracts, all paid for by taxpayers,” Assistant Manhattan U.S. Attorney David Zhou said.
“This man, Alain Kaloyeros, made sure the fix was in.”
Zhou said that Kaloyeros feared he would fall out of favor with the governor.
“Howe fixed those problems, gave him access to important people in the governor’s office,” Zhou said.
The trial is fodder for Cuomo’s critics.
Zephyr Teachout, a candidate for state attorney general, was in the audience and said that the case “outlines charges of cronyism and payto-play tactics that plague New York State government.”
Howe was arrested in the middle of a related trial in February after he admitted on the stand that he’d tried to con a hotel out of a $600 bill — after signing a cooperation agreement with the feds and agreeing to plead guilty to eight felonies.
Howe is awaiting sentencing.
“You can’t trust a word that Todd Howe typed or said,” Weingarten said.
“It will come back to whether you can believe Todd Howe, who will make no appearance in this case, except for his email.”
A former LPCiminelli vice president, Kevin Schuler, has pleaded guilty and will testify as part of a cooperation agreement with the feds.
Schuler will tell the jury that Kaloyeros allowed LPCiminelli to handpick a second company to get a cut of the Buffalo Billion contracts up for bid, Zhou said.
“Kaloyeros decided the rules didn’t apply to him. So he cheated and lied,” Zhou said.
In later testimony, Cuomo’s former deputy director for state operations, Andrew Kennedy, said the governor’s office initially regarded Kaloyeros with “skepticism.”
That changed when the man known as “Dr. K” hired Howe in 2011.
“Projects that (Kaloyeros) was advancing got consideration,” Kennedy said.
Once the jury had left for the day, Judge Valerie Caproni said she was taken aback by the fact that Kaloyeros, the head of a state college, needed to pay a lobbyist to influence the governor.