“When SUNY Polytechnic Institute needed a lobbyist, it turned to Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, Albany’s largest law firm.
When Fuller Road Management Corp. — a nonprofit run by SUNY Poly to award contracts — sought legal counsel, it turned to Whiteman Osterman & Hanna.
Whiteman Osterman & Hanna was also the pick for COR Development — a Syracuse-area contractor bidding for a contract it ultimately won — when it needed permitting experts.
And when COR needed a lobbyist? It was Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, records show.
There’s more: Joseph Percoco, one of Cuomo’s closest confidants and aides serving at the time as the governor’s campaign manager, reported receiving as much as $75,000 from COR in 2014, though the company denies it.
The relationships highlight a growing federal investigation by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara that has rocked the Cuomo administration in what may be the most serious scandal of the governor’s six years in office.
So much so that Cuomo’s counsel on April 29 publicly acknowledged the possibility of “improper lobbying and undisclosed conflicts of interest” within some of the governor’s biggest development initiatives to date.
There are “so many red flags” that it’s “hard to know where to start,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, a group that’s been critical of Cuomo’s economic-development work.
“The exact same lawyers and consultants are representing both the government and the businesses that are either getting contracts or subsidies,” Kaehny said. “You have the same people sitting on both sides of the deals again and again and again. It just really reeks of a completely rigged and corrupt process.””
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Campbell, Jon. Democrat & Chronicle 7 May 2016