The Supreme Court tossed out lower court decisions in two New York corruption cases, including one ruling that a former staffer and close friend of disgraced Gov. Andrew Cuomo had taken an illegal bribe. The staffer, Joseph Percoco, worked in Cuomo’s office between 2011 and 2016, with a brief gap in 2014 to assist the governor’s campaign, according to CNN. During his brief stint as a private citizen—after which it was understood that Percoco would return to state government—he took $35,000 from a real estate developer, among other business dealings. Prosecutors argued that, because it was safe to assume Percoco intended to return to government, his business moves during the campaign months constituted corruption. The Percoco camp saw the conduct in a more innocent light, however. Sure, a public official who accepts pay-for-play is a criminal, Percoco’s lawyer wrote, but “when a private citizen accepts money to convince the government to do something, we call him a lobbyist.”
