BINGHAMTON, NY (WSKG) - New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Marc Molinaro blames the incumbent after his former associate, as well as three developers, was convicted on corruption charges.
Former SUNY Polytechnic President Alain Kaloyeros was convicted of unfairly favoring developers from Syracuse and Buffalo when awarding state contracts.
At a stop in Binghamton, Molinaro said Governor Cuomo hasn’t done enough to stop corruption.
"Any other governor in America would under burning pressure from the public and the media to resign. Understand what happened yesterday, make no mistake about it: the governor’s administration was found guilty," Molinaro said.
This is the second time this year a Cuomo associate has been found guilty of corruption. His 2014 campaign manager and adviser Joe Percoco was convicted in March.
Cuomo was not accused of wrongdoing in either case.
In a statement released after the verdict, Cuomo said, "The jury has spoken and justice has been done. There can be no tolerance for those who seek to defraud the system to advance their own personal interests. Anyone who has committed such an egregious act should be punished to the full extent of the law."
Prosecutors said Kaloyeros was part of a conspiracy to secretly enable developers who were big contributors to Cuomo's campaigns to win the lucrative contracts.
Buffalo developer Louis Ciminielli and others in his company contributed nearly $100,000 to Cuomo's campaign. Meanwhile, Syracuse-based COR Development executives and their relatives contributed $125,000 to Cuomo's 2014 re-election campaign.
Defense lawyers insisted throughout the trial that the developers were given no advantages in the selection process for the Buffalo Billion project and that other prospective developers had every opportunity to win the jobs.
The governor has said he didn’t know that any of the bid rigging activities were going on.
Molinaro called on the governor to return any contributions made to his campaigns by the convicted developers.
Molinaro was in Binghamton touring local businesses with Senator Fred Akshar.