NEW YORK – Former CPV executive Peter Galbraith Kelly, Jr. was sentenced in federal court on Tuesday to 14 months in prison for defrauding CPV, the company that built the electric generating plant in Wawayanda.
Kelly defrauded CPV by misrepresenting that Joseph Percoco, the former executive deputy secretary to Governor Cuomo, had obtained state ethics approval for his wife to work at CPV.
Co-defendants Percoco and Steven Aiello were convicted of charges related to bribery on March 13, 2018, after an eight-week jury trial. The jury was deadlocked on the charges against Kelly.
Joseph Gerardi, who was acquitted of all charges at the trial with Percoco, was convicted of all charges in a related trial earlier this year.
Kelly, 55, of Canterbury, Connecticut, pled guilty on May 11 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud before US District Judge Valerie Caproni, who sentenced him on Tuesday. “I hope the sentence will be heard in government affairs offices everywhere. You have to play by the rules,” the judge told the court.
Kelly had hired Percoco’s wife to a low-show job at CPV, and ran monthly payments to Percoco and his wife through a consultant who worked for CPV in order to disguise the source of the payments.
Kelly also made sure Percoco’s wife’s photograph and full name were not included in promotional materials for CPV, and on two occasions he falsely told his superiors at CPV that Percoco had obtained an ethics opinion from the governor’s office approving of Percoco’s wife’s employment with CPV, when no such opinion existed.
In addition to the prison time, Kelly was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $247,000 in restitution to the company.
Percoco was sentenced last month to six years in prison. Aiello is scheduled to be sentenced next month. Gerardi will be sentenced in December.
