By: Rusty Brooks
While William Hochul just made history by becoming New York state’s New York state’s first ever “first gentleman” as husband to new Governor Kathy Hochul, the NY Post is reporting a possible conflict of interest in regard to her lawyer husband.
The NY Post discovered a possible bombshell: the casino company employing Gov. Hochul‘s husband spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying state officials, including “staff at the Office of Governor and Lt. Governor,” while she was lieutenant governor, records show.
The NY Post explained Delaware North, a Buffalo-based gambling and hospitality giant where William Hochul Jr. serves as general counsel and senior vice president, paid New York lobbying shop Bolton-St. Johns more than $300,000 between 2019 and 2021 for lobbying services in Albany, according to a review of JCOPE filings by The Post.
Houchul promised a new era of “transparency” after Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace, but she seems to be connected to lobbying firms and big business, and this was evidently not widely known until the NY Post investigated.
It gets better, as the NY Post pointed out; The lion’s share of Delaware North filings from Bolton-St. Johns lists Michael Keogh as a lobbyist for the company. The longtime Bolton partner is married to Karen Persichilli, who just became Gov. Hochul’s powerful new secretary.
Persichilli is no stranger to the lobbyist world, and worked as “head of state government relations” for JP Morgan Chase, according to her LinkedIn bio.
Gov. Hochul spent time as a lobbyist for M&T Bank in Buffalo after she left Congress in 2012, the Associated Press reported. The Houchul administration seems to be surrounded by big business, bankers, and lobbyists.
Regarding her husband, “Neither Delaware North nor its lobbyists have ever lobbied the former-Lieutenant Governor or her staff on any matter on behalf of Delaware North,” a company spokeswoman told The Post, insisting that JCOPE “does not allow lobbyists to delineate between the governor and lieutenant governor’s offices” in filings.
The NY Post however reported that in several instances Delaware North and its lobbyists engaged in “direct lobbying” of the “Executive Chamber/Staff of Office of Governor and Lt. Governor” in 2020 and 2021, a time when Kathy Hochul held the position, records show.
“When Bolton-St Johns supported Delaware North, we never worked with Mr. Hochul, Mr. Keogh did not ever do work for Delaware North, and Bolton-St Johns’ contract ended with Delaware North in February 2021,” a company spokesman told The Post, saying Keogh’s name was only on the forms out of an abundance of caution.
