Listening to Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court arguments about two prosecutions won by former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, it seems likely that the bad guys will go free. If and when that happens, consider it a lucky break for Andrew Cuomo’s former hatchet man Joe Percoco and a foursome caught rigging Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion program — and the umpteenth signal that America desperately needs better laws to police public corruption.
Percoco took $35,000 from a developer for helping win state approval on a project. He made the call to the head of the right agency and pocketed the money during a short break in 2014 when he was off of Cuomo’s government payroll to manage Cuomo’s successful reelection campaign. Percoco then quickly resumed his position back on the government payroll.
If Percoco hadn’t been on a brief hiatus from his official duties, it would’ve all been unquestionably illegal — but, in the sordid spirit of Supreme Court decisions in favor of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and Bridgegate conspirators that chipped away at the ability to police other forms of public corruption, a gaping new loophole is about to be created.
Should Percoco have his conviction overturned, there will be a new avenue for government employees serving the public interest to make the quick switch to cash in and serve private interests.
The answer is far tougher state laws about revolving doors and blackout periods. If campaign manager Percoco had been barred for a year or two from contacting state agencies he’d been overseeing just days before, the call and the payment couldn’t have happened.
The Buffalo Billion quartet of Louis Ciminelli, Alain Kaloyeros, Steven Aiello and Joseph Gerardi are also seemingly in line to have their convictions vacated, this time on a different legal theory. Again, they did wrong, very wrong — committing a massive fraud on taxpayers — and Bharara rightly exposed it. If and when they win, they will be free, but not vindicated.
———
