http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/nyregion/todd-howe-cuomo-graft-scandal.html 2016-10-07 11:40:18 At Graft Scandal’s Center, a Lobbyist With a Long History in the Cuomo Orbit Todd R. Howe, who has implicated himself in a corruption case that threatens to do lasting harm to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s political career, has been connected to Mr. Cuomo and his father for decades. === For Gov. It is a betrayal of Mr. Cuomo’s And if anyone made it all possible, it seemed to be one of their own: Todd R. Howe, who has implicated himself and helped federal prosecutors As a scheduling director and fixer for Mario Cuomo in 1991, Mr. Howe arranged for the then-governor to fly to New Hampshire to launch a presidential bid on two planes that, like Mr. Cuomo’s campaign, never left the Albany tarmac. Mr. Howe followed Andrew Cuomo to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and, years later, helped run his re-election campaign for governor in 2014. Now, as a potential star witness for the prosecution, Mr. Howe — a lobbyist with a big house and a bank account perpetually “He is an evil person,” was the “A self-admitted fraudster, tax cheat and liar,” said Steve Coffey, a lawyer for two development executives facing federal charges for allegedly bribing Andrew Cuomo’s former Federal prosecutors have been more diplomatic in their choice of words. But by their account, Mr. Howe, in already pleading guilty, has confessed to all that and more: supplying the plot’s connective tissue, the brains and the secret shell company used to hide hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. The central role played by Mr. Cuomo’s former aides has made it all but impossible for him to avoid “There is shock and disappointment and anger among a number of people who worked under Mario, feeling like it’s a betrayal of the brand, feeling like it dirties the legacy that they’re all so proud of,” said Mayor Stephanie A. Miner of Syracuse, a Democrat who worked for the elder Mr. Cuomo in the early 1990s. “It is just nothing that anyone would’ve thought possible.” The cozy maneuverings of the Cuomos’ extended circle unfold over the criminal complaint’s 79 pages like a sleazy political melodrama, crossed with a buddy comedy of equally questionable taste. As described in the complaint, the scheme revolved around Mr. Howe and Mr. Percoco, friends since Mr. Howe hired Mr. Percoco as an advance man for Mario Cuomo right out of college. Their banter over emails and text messages is garnished with inside jokes, locker-room nicknames and exuberant punctuation. The correspondence also includes a homage, of sorts, to the old boss. There are numerous messages in which Mr. Howe and Mr. Percoco call each other “Herb,” a nickname that began circulating in the first Cuomo administration after the elder Mr. Cuomo, who served as New York’s governor from 1983 to 1994, teased Mr. Howe that his hair looked like that of Herbert London, Mr. Howe even kept a fleece jacket from one of Mr. Cuomo’s campaigns emblazoned with “Herb.” It was a reminder of the way that power in the Cuomo orbit tended to accrue to those who had served the former governor long and loyally, cementing decades-long friendships with one another along the way. Even so, the younger Mr. Cuomo has insisted that he does not know Mr. Howe well, and the governor’s chief of staff, Melissa DeRosa, said that she had never heard him speak to or about Mr. Howe. Of all the “Herbs,” Mr. Howe was closest to Mr. Percoco, who followed Mr. Howe to Washington in the 1990s. Later, they shared an office during Andrew Cuomo’s re-election campaign in 2014; Mr. Percoco served as the official campaign manager, Mr. Howe as his unofficial partner. They often complemented one another. If Mr. Percoco acted as chief lieutenant to the governor, Mr. Howe played administration whisperer, cultivating a reputation as the right person to call for a direct line to the governor’s office. Where Mr. Percoco screamed threats at allies and enemies, Mr. Howe was charming, well liked and apologetic when delivering unwelcome news. But both badly needed the money that mixing government and business could offer. Mr. Howe has cut a chaotic path through courts in Washington and suburban Maryland, where he has been sued repeatedly for ducking a long list of creditors that includes kitchen contractors, a tree nursery and a swimming-pool repairman, as well as for failing to repay a In all, he has had nearly $400,000 in federal tax liens and other judgments entered against him. Still, until recently, many of his friends and political associates had assumed he had the finances to match his prosperous lifestyle. He bought a $1.8 million home in Washington. His children went to boarding schools and private colleges. When he pleaded guilty to the felony charges associated with the bribery scheme on Sept. 20, two days before charges were announced against the other defendants, Mr. Howe told a judge that he was seeing a psychologist “with regard to financial issues.” Mr. Percoco, too, was slipping financially. He and his wife, Lisa Toscano-Percoco, bought an $800,000 home in Westchester County in 2012, moving from Staten Island to the same well-groomed area as Mr. Cuomo and another “Herb,” Howard Glaser, Mr. Cuomo’s former director of state operations. Soon afterward, Ms. Percoco left her job as a New York City public-school teacher. The couple’s monthly income shrank to less than half their expenses, which averaged about $20,000 a month. Mr. Howe had an idea or two. In one part of the bribery scheme, prosecutors say, one of his clients, Peter Galbraith Kelly, a lobbyist for an energy company seeking state approvals for a power plant it was building in the Hudson Valley, created a new job — long on pay, short on hours — for Ms. Percoco, routing her $7,500-a-month salary In exchange, prosecutors say, Mr. Percoco tried to help the company obtain favorable decisions from two state agencies, arranging several meetings between Mr. Kelly and Mr. Glaser or another top aide in the governor’s office. Long after it became clear that Mr. Kelly would not get everything he wanted, Mr. Percoco continued to shake him down. Mr. Howe egged him on, using their not-so-subtle code word for payments — “ziti,” a joking allusion, often misspelled by the two men, to “The Sopranos.” “Handle fat boy carefully,” he wrote to Mr. Percoco, referring to Mr. Kelly, according to the complaint. “We don’t need an interruption in that Zitti delivery or else we’ll really be up the creek.” As word of the investigation leaked, Mr. Howe gave friends the impression that his arrangement with Mr. Percoco was more or less legitimate. (Mr. Percoco’s lawyer, Barry A. Bohrer, has described his client’s behavior as legal.) “Todd would say early on, ‘I wasn’t trying to do anything wrong; Joe was off the clock and he needed work, and I set him up with some of my clients,’” said Chris Lapetina, a political consultant who has known Mr. Howe since they both worked for Mario Cuomo. Mr. Howe, too, did well for himself. While earning $25,000 a month as a consultant to the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute, which In the meantime, Mr. Howe urged each developer to flood Mr. Cuomo’s re-election campaign with donations, the better to make an impression in the governor’s office. As part of his deal with prosecutors, Mr. Howe has pleaded guilty to concealing or misappropriating at least $1.5 million in consulting fees and travel expenses from his employer, the Albany-based lobbying firm WOH Government Solutions, and then falsifying his tax returns to avoid paying income taxes on them. When news reports began identifying Mr. Howe as a target of the investigation in late April, friends advised him to cooperate. Facing multiple felony charges, he felt he had little choice. “He said, ‘I’m just going to go in and tell the truth,’” Mr. Lapetina recalled. By June, according to court documents, he was in a federal prosecutor’s office, grasping at one more chance for survival.