New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s former top aide at the center of a federal probe earned over $100,000 in income from two firms involved in Governor Cuomo’s economic development projects, according to financial disclosure forms.
According to the forms, made public by the state ethics commission, former longtime Cuomo associate Joe Percoco earned up to $125,000 from Clough Harbor Associates and COR development, two firms involved in Governor Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion project and other taxpayer funded high-tech developments associated with SUNY Polytechnic Institute. Percoco may not have been actually on the state payroll when he received the payments; he left from April 21 to December 8, according to records from the State Comptroller, but he was helping run Cuomo’s reelection efforts during that time period.
Both Clough Harbor Associates and COR development are major campaign donors to Cuomo, and are not believed to be under investigation.
The director of the governor’s own internal investigation on the matter has already said that there’s reason to believe that the state may have been “defrauded by improper bidding and failures to disclose potential conflicts of interest by lobbyists and former state employees.”
