Cuomo will continue to withhold Percoco’s disclosure forms, other material from release
Joseph Percoco, executive deputy secretary, left, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, enter the Red Room Friday, April 26, 2013, during a press conference at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)
Despite Thursday’s release of a criminal complaint against Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s former top aide Joe Percoco, the administration will continue to block the release of Percoco’s disclosure forms from his 2014 return to state service.
In May, the governor’s counsel Alphonso David promised to release the material once the investigation into improper lobbying and conflicts of interest in upstate development projects were complete.
“No documents regarding this process will be released until the investigations are completed in order to respect the integrity of the inquiries,” David told Politico New York’s Jimmy Vielkind this spring, referring to the material Percoco would have been required to complete upon rejoining the Executive Chamber following the seven months he spent serving as Cuomo’s campaign manager — while also taking “consulting” payments from CHA Consulting and COR Development, according to separate disclosure forms he filed in 2015 with the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics.
In recent weeks, the administration has rejected a number of requests made by the Times Union under the state Freedom of Information Law by citing “the publicly-disclosed ongoing law enforcement investigation with which we have offered our cooperation, we are unable to comply with your request.”
On Monday, Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi responded to a fresh request for the Percoco materials — the subject of one of the TU’s FOILs — by sending along a section of Public Officers Law dealing with appropriate exemptions to FOIL in which he had bolded sections that seemed to move the goalposts for release beyond what David had discussed in May:
POL 87 (2). Each agency shall, in accordance with its published rules, make available for public inspection and copying all records, except that such agency may deny access to records or portions thereof that:
(e) are compiled for law enforcement purposes and which, if disclosed, would:
i. interfere with law enforcement investigations or judicial proceedings;
ii. deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or impartial adjudication;
iii. identify a confidential source or disclose confidential information relating to a criminal investigation; or
iv. reveal criminal investigative techniques or procedures, except routine techniques and procedures;
Azzopardi did not immediately respond when asked if this meant the material would be released only after Percoco’s case is finally adjudicated (whether through a plea, a trial or conceivably dismissal of the charges) or when the legal travails of all nine of the defendants in the federal complaint are concluded — a process that could take years.
The federal complaint alleges that Percoco falsely stated in his JCOPE disclosure form that his wife earned income from “Chris Pitts LLC” when she was in fact earning income from Competitive Power Ventures, an energy company that allegedly used Percoco to try to secure official favors — not always successfully.
Update: Azzopardi offered this statement: “The law is clear and hasn’t changed: documents are not released if it will interfere with law enforcement investigations or court proceedings. Further, as we’ve said multiple times, we have pledged full cooperation with the U.S. Attorney’s investigation into this matter.”
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