Lawyer for ex-top aide to Cuomo mocks bribery prosecution
NEW YORK — A lawyer for a longtime confidante and top aide to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told jurors Wednesday that his client accepted no bribes, or “ziti,” as prosecutors like to call it.
Attorney Barry Bohrer mocked how prosecutors made the word from the popular HBO series “The Sopranos” a focus of their closing argument in the trial of Joseph Percoco, who was chairman of Cuomo’s 2014 successful re-election campaign.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Zhou began his closing argument Tuesday by reading aloud a few emails in which Percoco, 48, and his former friend, lobbyist Todd Howe, used the word in their communications. Zhou told jurors Percoco was “begging, requesting, demanding ziti” and got it when one businessman who needed help from the state hired his wife at a job that paid her a total of $290,000 while two real estate developers arranged for him to get another $35,000.
Bohrer said ziti proved nothing.