ALBANY
— Theirs was a relationship built on nearly three decades of unswerving
loyalty, absolute trust and near-constant interaction: It was all but
impossible to imagine Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo without Joseph Percoco, his closest aide and the enduring mainstay of his life in politics.
It took only a few days to send it crumbling to the ground.
By
the end of April, it had become clear that Mr. Percoco was in trouble.
Federal investigators had subpoenaed records related to him from a state
ethics board. Then, the governor learned that federal agents had raided
Mr. Percoco’s home in Westchester County, looking for evidence that he
and his wife had improperly received thousands of dollars from companies
that had done business with the state.
Later,
after some 72 hours of intense strategizing, the governor effectively
cut ties with Mr. Percoco in a jarring public statement acknowledging
that the actions of “some individuals” may have “defrauded the state.”
Mr. Cuomo has been even more overt since then, repeatedly naming Mr.
Percoco and another former aide, Todd R. Howe, as the prime targets of
the investigation led by Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for
the Southern District of New York.
Click here for the full article.
Source: The New York Times and The Empire Report
No comments:
Post a Comment