More than a decade before confessing to corruption charges, there were warning signs that lobbyist Todd Howe, a former aide to Gov. Cuomo, was crooked.
Howe was fired from a powerful Washington, DC, banking group for financial improprieties, The Post has learned.
The Mortgage Bankers Association terminated Howe as one of its vice presidents in 2002 without saying why. But MBA insiders who worked with Howe said he was fired for misusing his corporate credit card — buying himself personal items and fancy suits.
“Howe was summarily dismissed from the association in 2002 — walked out the door by a company executive without any chance to clear out his office — after he was found to have been misappropriating funds to pay for personal expenses he had put on his corporate credit card, for purchases at such places as Brooks Brothers,” an MBA insider said.
A second MBA source confirmed that Howe was fired “ ‘for cause’ for misusing his corporate credit card.”
“His termination was abrupt. There was no going-away party,” the source said.
And after his dismissal, a number of other questionable payments were found to have been made by Howe, including expenses he approved for “consulting” fees, an MBA source claimed.
With the circumstances surrounding Howe’s dismissal kept hush-hush, he went on to become a consultant with Whiteman Osterman & Hanna in DC and Albany, trading in on his ties to pals in the Cuomo administration, including his co-defendant in the federal corruption case, Joe Percoco.
Before his employment at MBA, Howe served as deputy chief of staff to Andrew Cuomo, who at the time headed the federal housing agency for then-President Bill Clinton. Howe previously had served as an aide to former Gov. Mario Cuomo, Andrew’s dad.
In the Manhattan federal corruption case, Howe has admitted to pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars from developers and from rigged bids on state contracts linked to the upstate Buffalo Billion economic-revitalization plan — at the same time he was working as a consultant to the taxpayer-funded program.
Now a government cooperator, Howe will spell out how he committed the crimes with company executives who are defendants in the case, as well as with longtime Cuomo family loyalist Percoco.
Howe admitted he was fired by MBA but denied the reasons cited.