When Dr.kmet Mr. Fox

You don’t have to go to Harvard Business School to know that in the world of henhouse management, the worst creature to place in a position of power is the natural world’s cunning ginger predator, the fox.

This lesson was once again visited upon Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration this week through the testimony of David Doyle, the former spokesman for SUNY Polytechnic Institute who appeared Wednesday in the federal bid-rigging trial of the school’s founder and former leader, Alain Kaloyeros, and three upstate development executives.

Under questioning by the prosecution, Doyle said that Kaloyeros had explained to him how former business consultant and future confessed bagman Todd Howe had come to be installed at the school in his capacity as a sorta-lobbyist for the influential Albany-based law firm Whiteman Osterman & Hanna.

“When the Cuomo administration came to office (in 2011), they had some reservations about Dr. Kaloyeros,” Doyle said. “They didn’t know him, they didn’t quite understand what was going on there. There was an enormous amount of state money that had already been invested in the campus. And they weren’t sure if they wanted to continue to work with him.”

Doyle said Kaloyeros, who had built SUNY Poly into a nanotechnology powerhouse, went before the Executive Chamber with his metaphorical hat in hand to make a case for why he should be allowed to stay at the helm of what was then part of the state University at Albany. And he was allowed to do so, Doyle said, “with the condition, you know, that Todd Howe would come on and serve as eyes and ears ... for the governor’s office.”

Now, your belief in this account depends on trusting that Doyle wouldn’t perjure himself on the stand, which is a pretty good bet considering that he has absolutely no motive to lie. (Doyle was also walked through numerous instances in which he was deployed by Kaloyeros or Howe in their attempts to cloud the minds of reporters, which while odious — especially when your job is funded by taxpayers — is not illegal.)

It also depends on whether or not you believe that Kaloyeros, who as noted stands accused of federal crimes, would tell Doyle the truth about this episode. But why would Dr. K lie?

At the time Howe was allegedly assigned by the administration to serve as Kaloyeros’ minder, he was already representing Syracuse’s COR Development in its attempts to secure contracts from the state. He would soon come to represent Buffalo’s Lpciminelli firm in its efforts, as well. Executives from both firms are now in the dock next to Kaloyeros.

This arrangement meant that in all matters involving those firms, Howe was sitting on both sides of the table in procurement deals, collecting consulting fees from all parties. Coming around again to our initial agricultural metaphor, this allowed him to both oversee the henhouse personnel while also selecting the most succulent pullets, stuffing them in a bag and taking them out to the woods for reduction to bones, blood and feathers.

At the time he became what Doyle described as the Cuomo administration’s eyes and ears, Howe had gone through a 2003 personal bankruptcy and in 2010 pleaded guilty to a theft charge for attempting to bilk $45,000 out of his bank. For anyone with the ability to access court records online — and if the Cuomo administration lacks this skill, they can drop by our newsroom for a primer — the Washington-based Howe had been the subject of numerous civil actions brought by a list of aggrieved businesses that the New York Times memorably described as resembling “the Maryland yellow pages: a swimming pool technician, a lumberyard, a heating technician and so on.”

If Howe was the governor’s boy at SUNY Poly, it is far more likely that his real bona fides related to his years of devotion to the Cuomos, first as an advance man for Gov. Mario Cuomo and then as an aide to Andrew at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Numerous witnesses at the Kaloyeros trial noted this closeness to both the younger Cuomo and to Howard Glaser, who at the time of Howe’s alleged elevation to the post of chief Kaloyeros-watcher was the governor’s director of state operations. Howe could also be counted on to help arrange donations to Cuomo’s campaigns from his clients, structured in ways that would be less likely to attract attention from pain-inthe-keister reporters and good government groups.

Howe himself is now being watched — by the federal employees of the Manhattan Correctional Center.

The Cuomo administration this week refused to comment on Doyle’s account, citing the ongoing trial. Coincidentally, both the administration and Cuomo’s campaign refused to explain to the TU’S Rachel Silberstein why Cuomo in November 2015 — just two months after Howe pleaded guilty to multiple felonies and the feds rounded up its defendants — vowed in an official press release to order “my campaign and my party” not to accept donations from companies involved in active bidding on state contracts under the “request for proposal” process, and then simply failed to implement that promise.

It sounds as if Kaloyeros might not be the only one who needs a minder.