By Ted Caddell

An executive for power plant developer Competitive Power Ventures, two former aides of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and seven others were named in a broad bribery indictment by federal authorities in New York on Thursday.

Peter Galbraith Kelly Jr., CPV’s head of external affairs and government relations, was named in the indictment. CPV is only identified as “the energy company” in the indictment, and the company itself was not a named defendant.

One of the former aides, Todd R. Howe, has already pleaded guilty to several charges, including extortion, wire fraud and conspiracy, and has agreed to testify against the others. According to the indictment and Howe’s plea arrangement, Howe arranged bribes to be paid by CPV and another company, COR Development.

The bribes allegedly came as CPV was arranging to build the 650-MW Valley Energy Center in Orange County, a combined cycle plant that was granted a certificate of public convenience and necessity a little more than two years ago. It is still under construction and is seen as necessary to relieve downstate transmission constraints.

The top target in the indictment is Joseph Percoco, who formerly held a $169,000-a-year post as Cuomo’s executive deputy secretary. He left the state payroll in January, taking a position at Madison Square Garden.

According to the indictments and a release issued by Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Percoco is accused of taking more than $315,000 in bribes from Kelly and two executives with Syracuse developer COR Development, Steven Aiello and Joseph Gerardi.

Kelly did not return calls for comment by press time.

“CPV takes the charges handed down today very seriously,” the company said in a statement. “We are extremely disappointed in the alleged conduct, which is in direct contradiction to CPV’s core values and expectations of our staff. Braith Kelly is no longer employed at the company. We will continue to cooperate fully with this investigation until a final determination is made.”

The indictment also names Alain Kaloyeros, president of the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute, as being involved in what federal authorities called “two overlapping criminal schemes involving bribery, corruption and fraud in the award of hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts and other official state benefits.”

According to the statement from Bharara, Percoco was experiencing financial problems at the time that CPV was seeking New York’s approval of the power plant. Kelly gave Percoco “expensive meals and a Hamptons fishing trip” in the beginning. But later, at Percoco’s request, CPV hired Percoco’s wife at about $90,000 a year for a job that didn’t require much work.

In exchange, according to the charging document, Percoco used his official position to help CPV get lower-cost emissions credits from the state for a plant the company was building in New Jersey, and he helped arrange a power purchase agreement with New York. As a result, CPV was expected to save about $100 million in development costs.

The indictment says Kelly hid the monthly payments to Percoco and his wife through a CPV consultant. Percoco is also accused of lying when he told CPV that he had received an ethics opinion from Cuomo’s office approving his wife’s hiring. He also hid the payments he received from CPV, failing to list them on financial disclosure forms.

News of the investigation broke earlier this year. (See CPV Power Plant Ensnared in Federal Corruption Probe.) At the time, CPV was named as a company that made payments to Percoco, but it wasn’t identified as a target of criminal charges.

Thursday’s indictment identifies Kelly as a co-conspirator, saying he “willfully and knowingly did corruptly give” Percoco bribes “in order for Percoco to influence regulatory approvals and funding related to the development of a power plant in Orange County, N.Y., and take other official action to benefit” CPV.

The rest of the indictment has to do with other attempts to subvert the state regulatory process, according to the release. The primary focus of the investigation is the so-called Buffalo Billion economic development program championed by Cuomo. Bharara’s probe began last fall. A centerpiece of that program is $750 million in direct state aid and tax credits to SolarCity, which is building a 1-GW solar panel factory, the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, according to the state.