This Is What a $90,000 ‘Low-Show Job’ Looks Like in Albany

NEW YORK — A less-than-two-hour class, taught about six times a year. Conference calls taken poolside, or from the car. A handful of posts each week on the company social media account, sharing colorful cartoons or titles of children’s books related to energy conservation.

These were some of the duties that earned Lisa Toscano-Percoco, the wife of a former top state official, $90,000 a year while she was employed by a Maryland-based energy company, Competitive Power Ventures, in what federal prosecutors characterized as a “low-show job.” Prosecutors say the job was provided by one of the company’s former executives as a bribe to Toscano-Percoco’s husband, Joseph Percoco.

Percoco, once Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s executive deputy secretary, is on trial along with the executive, Peter Galbraith Kelly, and two Syracuse-area developers. He is accused of trading his clout as the governor’s confidant and enforcer for more than $300,000 in bribes, including his wife’s salary; in return, prosecutors say he worked to help CPV land a state contract. Toscano-Percoco has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

The focus on Toscano-Percoco’s job over the last few days has been a departure from the rest of the trial, which is in its fifth week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Up to this point, much of the testimony has focused on almost stereotypically unsavory political maneuverings. There have been mocking emails and profanity-laced phone calls, luxury fishing trips and allusions to “The Sopranos.”

But as prosecutors have homed in on Toscano-Percoco’s job as an educational consultant to the energy company, they have sought to reveal another face of the supposed bribery scheme.

Rather than picking apart emails about how to dodge an expensive union labor requirement, lawyers have wrangled over whether they can introduce thank-you letters from children who participated in energy classes, or show videos of Toscano-Percoco interacting with students in the classroom. (Judge Valerie E. Caproni rejected the videos, saying that defense lawyers were seeking to “humanize” Toscano-Percoco, hoping to play on jurors’ emotions.)

Prosecutors have acknowledged their somewhat odd lines of argument, especially as defense lawyers have sought to distinguish Toscano-Percoco’s effectiveness as an educator from the more blatant seediness that has permeated the rest of the trial.

“The jury is not being asked to evaluate whether Lisa Percoco was a good teacher or not,” a prosecutor, Janis Echenberg, said Tuesday, acknowledging that a witness had said Toscano-Percoco was “great in the classroom.” “The issue is, why was she given the job?”

The answer, Echenberg suggested, was her husband. While questioning Yanina Daigle, a former employee of the energy company who oversaw its educational program, called CPV Educates, Echenberg asked if she had ever interviewed Toscano-Percoco, or if she had heard of her being interviewed at all. Daigle said no.

All she knew about Toscano-Percoco, Daigle said, was that her husband was “Gov. Cuomo’s right-hand man.”

When Echenberg asked if Toscano-Percoco participated in a career fair the program hosted, or a “Principal For a Day” event, or a science fair competition, Daigle again said no.

“She didn’t feel it was part of her job description,” she said each time.

And when Echenberg asked Daigle to characterize Toscano-Percoco’s work quality and ethic, Daigle hesitated, then let loose.

“I don’t really want to throw her under the bus, but it was really subpar to what my expectations were and often sloppy,” she said. Toscano-Percoco’s work contained typos or incorrect dates, Daigle said; she was often late to phone calls or forgot about them altogether.

For all that, Toscano-Percoco was paid $7,500 a month — even though her replacement, when she left the company in 2016, was paid $2,400 a month.

Prosecutors seized upon the circumstances of Toscano-Percoco’s departure as further proof of the corrupt bargain they said had led to the job in the first place. Company officials decided not to renew Toscano-Percoco’s contract in late 2015 — around the same time her husband left government service.

Defense lawyers said Toscano-Percoco’s departure coincided with belt-tightening throughout the company.

But if her lackluster work effort failed to impress her supervisors, it seems there were instances when she did not receive credit even when it was deserved.

Asked about an event CPV Educates hosted at a local library, which Toscano-Percoco helped organize, Daigle said the company’s executives decided not to give Toscano-Percoco’s name to the library as the company contact, to avoid any appearance of impropriety, because of “who her husband was in New York.” In class, Daigle said, Toscano-Percoco introduced herself as “Ms. Lisa,” to avoid revealing her last name.

And when it came time to post photos from the library event to CPV Educates’ Twitter account, they chose a photo of another teacher, even though it was unflattering and not as good as the photos of Toscano-Percoco.

“Why was a photograph that wasn’t as good chosen to be used?” Echenberg asked.

Daigle replied: “Because Lisa wasn’t in it.”