Prosecutor Says Ex-Cuomo Aide Sold His Most Valuable Asset: His Job

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Joseph Percoco was a powerful man, but not a wealthy one, the prosecutor told the jury.

So Mr. Percoco decided to sell “the most valuable thing he owned — his job, his power and influence in state government,” the prosecutor, Robert L. Boone, said.

That was how Mr. Boone opened the government’s case against Mr. Percoco, who had been a close adviser and friend to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. Mr. Percoco is now on trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan on corruption charges.

In his opening statement on Tuesday, Mr. Boone alleged that Mr. Percoco’s three co-defendants — executives of two companies that had business before New York State — had been “more than happy” to buy that influence from him.

The widely watched trial is expected to highlight what prosecutors have long said is Albany’s corrupt culture of influence peddling and secret dealing, much as previous federal corruption cases in Manhattan have done in recent years.

Prosecutors have not accused Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, of any wrongdoing, and he distanced himself from Mr. Percoco after the charges were announced in September 2016. But the opening statements by the prosecutors and the defense suggested that Mr. Percoco’s longstanding association with Mr. Cuomo would resurface frequently in the trial, which is expected to last from four to six weeks.

Mr. Boone noted that Mr. Percoco “had a very long and a very fancy title — executive deputy secretary to the governor.”

“But he didn’t really need a title,” the prosecutor said, “because everyone in state government knew who Joseph Percoco was. He was the governor’s right-hand man.”

He added, “Wherever the governor went, Percoco went.”

At another point, Mr. Boone said Mr. Percoco had made a phone call to a person in the governor’s office who was overseeing an issue that one of the companies wanted resolved in its favor.

“For a state employee, getting a phone call from Percoco was like getting a call from the governor himself,” Mr. Boone said.

Mr. Percoco is accused of taking at least $315,000 in bribes from his co-defendants in return for performing official acts on their companies’ behalf.

“This case is about corruption,” Mr. Boone said, “the old-fashioned kind, where a government official takes money from wealthy businessmen in exchange for doing them favors.”

The defense lawyers, in their opening statements, sharply rejected that depiction. Mr. Percoco’s lawyer, Barry A. Bohrer, said that his client might have made mistakes but that they did not amount “to a federal criminal offense.”

Prosecutors have said more than $287,000 of the bribe payments to Mr. Percoco came in the form of a $90,000-a-year “low-show” job for his wife, Lisa Toscano-Percoco. The job was arranged, they have said, by an executive, Peter Galbraith Kelly Jr., of Competitive Power Ventures, which was building a power plant in the Hudson Valley. Mr. Kelly is one of the defendants.

The money was paid in return for official actions that benefited the company, prosecutors have alleged.

Mr. Kelly’s lawyer, Daniel M. Gitner, told the jury that his client had hired Mr. Percoco’s wife “as a favor to a friend, with no expectation of getting anything in return, and he got nothing in return.”

“It’s O.K. to do favors for friends, even friends in high places,” Mr. Gitner said.

Prosecutors have alleged that about $35,000 in bribe payments came from the two other defendants, Steven Aiello and Joseph Gerardi, executives of COR Development, a Syracuse-area developer that sought Mr. Percoco’s assistance, among other things, to have a decision reversed by the state’s economic development agency.

Mr. Boone, the prosecutor, made it clear that the government’s chief witness would be Todd R. Howe, a former aide to Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and a longtime friend of Mr. Percoco’s.

Mr. Boone said Mr. Howe, who ran a lobbying firm, had “connected the businessmen with Percoco” and “facilitated the bribe payments.” Mr. Howe has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and other charges and has been cooperating with the government in hopes, Mr. Boone said, of getting a more lenient sentence.

Lawyers for all four defendants attacked Mr. Howe relentlessly, calling him a “pathological liar” and a “classic con man” who had even lied to his children’s school and his dog walkers.

Lawyers for Mr. Aiello and Mr. Gerardi, the two executives with COR, a company that has given generously to Mr. Cuomo’s campaigns, also described their clients as innocent victims of Mr. Howe’s charm and mendacity.

Milton L. Williams Jr., a lawyer for Mr. Gerardi, also acknowledged that it was discouraging to hear many of the details of the way Albany works, with well-paid lobbyists leaning on lawmakers and others state officials, like Mr. Percoco, who are responsible for public policy.

“Everyone probably wants this changed,” Mr. Williams said. “But for right now, it’s legal.”

The government’s first witness was a forensic accountant from the F.B.I.’s Buffalo office. The accountant testified that Mr. Percoco and his wife had bought an expensive house in Westchester County in 2012, resulting in a negative cash flow for the family — just months before Ms. Toscano-Percoco received the job through the energy company.

During a cross-examination, however, another of Mr. Percoco’s lawyers, Michael L. Yaeger, elicited testimony that appeared intended to show that the Percocos had ample savings to cover expenses, even if their monthly costs had increased with the new home.

As the opening arguments began, the spectators in the packed courtroom included the newly appointed United States attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, and his deputy, Robert S. Khuzami.