The Supreme Court has agreed to review the wire fraud conviction of Louis Ciminelli, who was involved in the scandal-plagued “Buffalo Billion” development plan in upstate New York when Andrew Cuomo was the governor.
The case grew out of the ambitious Buffalo Billion Investment Development Plan (pdf), which envisioned the construction of a solar panel factory among other projects, and was aimed at attracting more than $8 billion in investments for Buffalo and the rest of western New York, creating nearly 14,000 jobs.
Prosecutors claimed Ciminelli, the CEO of LPCiminelli; Alain Kaloyeros, who is a former head of SUNY Polytechnic Institute; and COR Development executives Steven Aiello and Joseph Gerardi rigged bids for state contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars….