Corruption, Italian-style at bigs’ trial

It was all about fast cars, fast women and Gov. Cuomo.

A Buffalo developer and the former head of SUNY Polytechnic Institute listed some of their favorite things from Italy in an awkward email from May 2013 — three months before prosecutors say they rigged bids for lucrative development contracts.

“Say what you will about Italy, but it is the best at making two things,” Alain Kaloyeros wrote Louis Ciminelli, the principal of LPCiminelli.

“Si, certo. Ferraris, food ... and beautiful women,” Ciminelli replied.

“Hahahaha! Four things then. And New York State leaders by the name Cuomo,” Kaloyeros responded.

The email, along with other missives between the two men, was shown in Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday, while the jury was out of the courtroom. Prosecutors said before the start of the trial they would not introduce evidence of Kaloyeros’ lifestyle. The physicist, who Cuomo has called “an economic guru,” was once the state’s highest-paid employee, earning an $800,000-a-year salary.

Prosecutors introduced portions of the emails to show that Kaloyeros was eager to please Cuomo.

They allege Kaloyeros tried to get in Cuomo’s good graces by rigging lucrative state contracts for his most generous donors in western and central New York at the suggestion of a crooked lobbyist, Todd Howe.

By September 2013, Kaloyeros, Howe and Ciminelli were secretly swapping emails about a $225 million development project tied to Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion initiative.

Kaloyeros and Ciminelli are on trial along with executives from the Syracuse-based firm Cor, Steven Aiello and Joseph Gerardi.

Prosecutors have focused on emails between the developers, Kaloyeros and Howe in which they “tailor” requests for proposals for projects in each city before they became public. The men are accused of defrauding the state entity that awarded the contracts.