Key Prosecution Witness Describes Bribes to Top Cuomo Aide

NEW YORK — It was an unflattering portrait of Albany, with state officials and lobbyists trading in clubby dinners, fishing trips and sophomoric nicknames.

There were bribes, the star prosecution witness, Todd R. Howe, testified on Monday, but even those came with inside jokes: He and others called them “ziti,” a reference to money they picked up from “The Sopranos.”

But most of all, Howe began to deliver an unsparing look at how he said Joseph Percoco, once one of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s closest aides, sought to actively sell his influence in Albany in two separate bribery schemes involving companies seeking state contracts.

Percoco is one of four men on trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on corruption charges; Howe, an inside-the-Beltway veteran who also once ran an Albany lobbying firm, has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the government.

Prosecutors asked Howe about why he had helped Percoco, who he said was “the closest thing to a brother I ever had.”

“I wanted to help him because I wanted him to continue to help my clients as he had in the past,” Howe said.

In 2012, Howe said that he had received a call from Percoco, who indicated that he was facing financial strains, and his wife, Lisa, a former schoolteacher, was unemployed.

“He asked if there were any clients of mine that could possibly hire her to be a consultant or to teach in some capacity, if I had a client who might be willing to hire her,” Howe said.

And Howe’s client, Competitive Power Ventures, seemed well aware of Percoco’s potential influence. “My understanding was he wanted Joe to be an advocate, his eyes and ears in the governor’s office,” Howe said of Peter Galbraith Kelly Jr., then an executive with Competitive Power Ventures who is one of the four defendants on trial.

In another instance, a Syracuse-area developer, COR Development, was also seeking help from Percoco, who served as Cuomo’s executive deputy secretary. “They wanted that labor peace agreement to go away,” Howe recalled. “And they realized that Joe was in a position to make that happen.”

In all, prosecutors say, Percoco received more than $300,000 in bribes, paid to Percoco’s wife through a third party and through a shell company operated by Howe.

The testimony from Howe, who was expected to be questioned by prosecutors through Monday, offered a vivid and sometimes sordid look at the inner workings of the state Capitol, where Percoco was a well-known presence for years as the close friend and political enforcer of Cuomo.

Percoco’s influence in the Cuomo administration was well-known, Howe testified. “He had the ability to pick up that phone and get things done,” Howe said, likening it to the old advertising campaign for the former brokerage firm E.F. Hutton (“When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen”).

Cuomo, a Democrat facing re-election in the fall, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. But the governor’s proximity to Percoco — who Cuomo once referred as family, but is now facing felony charges that include conspiracy, extortion and soliciting bribes charges — has already cast questions on his choice of friends and personnel.

Howe also testified to the damage the scandal has done to him personally, noting that he had “made huge mistakes and it wrecked my career and my family’s life.”

Once a denizen of the halls of power in Washington and Albany, Howe said he has been forced to move from the East Coast. “My government affairs career was over,” he said.

Howe said he now lives in Idaho, where he works as a groundskeeper at a golf course.