Cuomo’s ex-aide’s corruption conviction overturned by Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court Overturns Public Corruption Conviction of Former Aide to Andrew Cuomo

The Supreme Court has unanimously overturned the public corruption conviction of Joe Percoco, a former longtime aide to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. The ruling, which was made on May 11, is a defeat for the Biden administration and a blow to prosecutors and the federal honest-services fraud statute, which some lawyers and civil libertarians say is vague and overbroad.

Recent History of Overturned Corruption Convictions

In recent years, the Supreme Court has been willing to overturn corruption convictions that involve public officials doing things that some think of as normal political activities. In May 2020, the court overturned the convictions of two former political operatives who orchestrated the “Bridgegate” traffic-congestion scandal of 2013. Before that, in 2016, the court reversed the conviction of the former Republican governor of Virginia, Bob McConnell, for taking gifts from a benefactor without actually taking action to benefit that person.

The Definition of Honest-Services Fraud

Federal law makes it a crime to engage in honest-services fraud, which it defines as “a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” Although the law was created to combat government corruption, its application isn’t limited just to government officials and can cover private citizens. The phrase “honest services” is not defined, which has allowed the courts to decide on the law’s reach.

For honest-services fraud to take place, someone must pay a bribe and someone must be harmed by it. The thinking behind the law is that the person accepting the bribe owes a duty to someone else, such as the citizenry.

The Case of Joe Percoco

In 2018, Percoco was convicted of two counts of conspiracy to commit honest-services fraud for taking money from companies that hoped to gain influence with the Cuomo administration. He was sentenced to six years in prison but was released two years early in 2021. Cuomo, a Democrat, resigned in 2021 over sexual harassment allegations.

Percoco argued he should not have been convicted for taking payments to influence government policy because, at the relevant time, he maintains he was merely a lobbyist who held only informal influence over government decision-making. In other words, Percoco said that because he was not a government official at the time he accepted the funds, no corruption was involved.

The Biden administration argued that despite formally leaving state employment, Percoco’s non-employee excuse was a sham because he continued to use his telephone and desk in the governor’s office and made it clear that he was assured a position with Cuomo’s administration after the election.

The case goes back to 2014 when a state agency known as Empire State Development advised developer Steven Aiello that his real estate business, COR Development, “needed to enter into a ‘Labor Peace Agreement’ with local unions if he wished to receive state funding for a lucrative project,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the court’s opinion (pdf).

“Interested in avoiding the costs of such an agreement, Aiello reached out to Percoco through an intermediary so that Percoco could ‘help us with this issue while he is off the 2nd floor,’ i.e., the floor that housed the Governor’s office. Percoco agreed and received two payments.”