A former top aide to Gov. Cuomo desperately demanded that a lobbyist arrange a “pay-to-play” bribe for him, saying he couldn’t make it “another month” without the cash infusion, according to evidence introduced by prosecutors at his corruption trial Tuesday.
A Nov. 12, 2012, email written by Joseph Percoco allegedly shows him telling lobbyist Todd Howe that he needed money steered to his wife, Lisa, for what the feds say was a crooked, “low-show” job.
“Come on Herb need to get stuff flowing here. Can’t go another month,” Percoco wrote.
Howe, who is serving as the prosecution’s star witness, testified earlier that he and Percoco called each other “Herb” as part of a long-running joke that dated back to the administration of Cuomo’s dad, the late Gov. Mario Cuomo, for whom both men worked.
Howe said he once told mentioned the “really bad toupee” of then-gubernatorial challenger Herb London, prompting the elder Cuomo to compare its appearance to Howe’s own hair.
The Nov. 12 email was one in a series between Percoco and Howe in which they allegedly discussed payoffs to Percoco from co-defendant Peter Galbraith “Braith” Kelly, then an exec with the Competitive Power Ventures energy company.
The emails also show Howe poking fun at Kelly’s weight, repeatedly referring to him as “fat man” and “fat boy,” including a Nov. 12, 2012, email in which he set up a dinner with Kelly at Percoco’s home in Westchester County.
“fat boy locked and loaded. 7 Thursday night at the estate. TH,” Howe wrote.
The feds allege that Percoco was short on cash after buying his sprawling, $815,000 house, and that Kelly arranged a $7,500-a-month job for Lisa Percoco as part of a failed bid to strike a deal to sell electricity to the state Power Authority.