Mastermind of Cuomo's economic development efforts is sentenced to prison

Kaloyeros, 62, whom Cuomo once called a genius and described as “New York’s secret weapon,” had conspired to steer hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts to favored firms in Buffalo and Syracuse, prosecutors charged.

His conviction further tarnished the reputation of a Capitol already known for a steady parade of corruption headlines, and cast a shadow on the development projects that Cuomo has made a centerpiece of his administration. (The governor has not been accused of any wrongdoing.)

“Kaloyeros’ willingness to lie and cheat tainted the Buffalo Billions with fraud and cynicism,” the judge, Valerie E. Caproni, said before imposing the sentence, which also included a $100,000 fine.

“If you can’t live with that,” she said, “then get out of government.”

Kaloyeros, in brief comments to the judge, said the harm done to his family, former colleagues and taxpayers weighed heavily upon him.

“I feel an enormous responsibility for the hurt and loss I have caused others,” he said.

Kaloyeros is the last major defendant to be sentenced in a series of state corruption prosecutions first announced nearly four years ago by Preet Bharara, then the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, in what he made a campaign against Albany’s culture of secrecy and influence peddling.

Another of Cuomo’s associates, Joseph Percoco, was convicted in March of soliciting and accepting more than $300,000 in bribes from executives of two firms with state business. Percoco, once one of Cuomo’s closest advisers, was sentenced to six years in prison.

Cuomo, a Democrat, had appointed Kaloyeros, then the president of the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute, to oversee the Buffalo Billion project, which has funneled $1.5 billion to upstate and western New York. The government did not allege that Kaloyeros profited financially through the bid-rigging scheme but rather that he used it to strengthen his relationship with Todd R. Howe, a former lobbyist with ties to Cuomo, and with the governor himself.

Caproni suggested the same motive in her remarks. While she called the lack of monetary gain a significant mitigating factor, “regardless of whether he profited financially, he profited politically,” she said.

“He let his desire to earn Brownie points in the executive chamber overcome the normal, well-thought-out processes that treated all developers fairly,” she said, “whether they were giving money to Cuomo campaign coffers or not.”

She also noted that Kaloyeros had deleted incriminating emails from a personal account, an act that prosecutors had portrayed as an attempt to obstruct the investigation.

Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement after the hearing that “public corruption — especially at such a disconcertingly high level in Albany — contributes to the frustration and eroding faith” of New Yorkers in their government.

Berman’s office had recommended a “substantial” term of imprisonment for Kaloyeros. Matthew Podolsky, a prosecutor, acknowledged in court that Kaloyeros had been a titan in his field who had made “real contributions to the economy of New York state.”

But ultimately, Podolsky said, Kaloyeros decided that his loyalty lay not with taxpayers, but with preserving his own influence.

“When Dr. Kaloyeros’ power was at risk, and when he wanted to expand that power, he was willing to abuse the authority that was conferred on him,” he said.

According to prosecutors, Kaloyeros and Howe had conspired to award lucrative contracts to two firms — LPCiminelli, a Buffalo construction management firm, and COR Development, a Syracuse-area company — whose executives were major donors to Cuomo.

They said that Kaloyeros and Howe had tailored requests for proposals to fit the special qualifications of the two firms, both clients of Howe’s, and ensure that they were chosen for the projects.

They accused Kaloyeros of engineering the plan to tailor the requests, and said that he himself had sat at his computer to draft the “fraudulent language” they contained.

LPCiminelli received a contract to build what became a $750 million solar-panel plant on the banks of the Buffalo River, while COR received contracts worth more than $100 million on other projects.

Kaloyeros’ lawyers, arguing for leniency, underscored that the scheme had yielded no financial gain for their client and had been aimed at furthering the state’s revitalization. They asked for a sentence at the low end of a range of four to 10 months.

After the hearing, the lawyers, Reid H. Weingarten and Michael C. Miller, called their client an innocent man who would appeal his conviction.

“Alain committed no crimes in connection with his work on the Buffalo Billion program,” they said in a statement. “He attempted at every stage to make sure that the people of the state of New York got the right contractor for the right job at the right price.”

Along with Kaloyeros and Percoco, others convicted in the series of federal corruption trials in Manhattan were Sheldon Silver, the former powerful Democratic Assembly speaker; Dean G. Skelos, the former Republican Senate majority leader; and several executives whose firms did business with the state and who were major donors to Cuomo. (At least two cooperating witnesses have yet to be sentenced.)

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Mastermind of Cuomo's economic development efforts is sentenced to prison

JOIN OUR PULSE COMMUNITY!