How Joseph Percoco, Cuomo’s Problem-Solver, Became a Problem

 

By Jesse McKinley and Vivian Yee

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.

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Source: The New York Times and The Empire Report