Bankers, a Union PAC and the U.S. Attorney’s Wife: Inside Hochul’s Buffalo Money

In March 2011, as William Hochul’s office was handling cases against men who robbed M&T Bank and Evans Bank branches, the two banks’ leaders gave to his wife’s congressional campaign. FEC records show M&T’s chairman, Robert G. Wilmers, gave $7,500 that year, and Evans Bank’s president and a corporate trainer gave $1,500 between them.

A year later, with the office pressing a racketeering case against the leaders of Operating Engineers Local 17, the union’s national PAC gave Kathy Hochul $10,000. No public record shows that her husband stepped aside from any of these cases.

The banks

Michael Makolinski robbed five banks in late 2007, including Evans National Bank, and was prosecuted by the office under Hochul, pleading guilty and drawing 15 years (DOJ; DOJ). Joseph Licata robbed Buffalo banks, including an M&T branch, in November 2010 and received 120 months (Syracuse.com; WGRZ). Donations: Rutecki (M&T) $1,000 on March 15, 2011; Wilmers $2,500 on March 18, Aug. 3 and Nov. 2, 2011; Swarts (Evans) $1,000 on March 16; Nasca (Evans) $250 on March 21 and April 29 (FEC filings linked in part one).

Local 17

Under Hochul, the office won a second superseding indictment on Jan. 10, 2012, charging 10 Local 17 members, including President Mark N. Kirsch, with racketeering conspiracy (DOJ). FEC records show the Engineers Political Education Committee, the International Union of Operating Engineers’ national PAC, gave $2,500 on Dec. 20, 2011, $2,500 on March 22, 2012, and $5,000 on June 24, 2012 (filing). The next day the campaign repaid Kathy Hochul $200,000 of her personal loans.

The questions

• Did the office consider whether his wife’s campaign taking money from a union whose local was under indictment created an appearance problem for the U.S. attorney?
• Did the banks’ leaders, as victims, have any contact with the office over sentencing?
• Did anyone in the Justice Department review these overlaps?

Federal ethics rules address appearances directly. The executive-branch impartiality rule, 5 C.F.R. 2635.502, tells employees to consider whether “a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts would question his impartiality” in a matter involving someone with whom they have a covered relationship, and gives a process for seeking authorization. The Justice Department’s own rule, 28 C.F.R. 45.2, bars prosecutors from participating in a criminal case without written authorization when they have a personal or political relationship with a person or organization substantially involved in the conduct under investigation or directly affected by the outcome. Whether either rule applied to donors to a prosecutor’s spouse who were defense lawyers or worked at victim banks is a question no public record answers, and one the office has never addressed in public.

What hasn’t been disclosed

• No public record shows whether William Hochul recused himself or was screened from these cases, or whether any ethics official reviewed his wife’s donor list against the office’s docket.
• In 2016 he said his recusals “generally” do not become public. The Inquisitor is asking the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to say whether recusal or authorization records exist and to release them.
• The Inquisitor is seeking any recusal memo, ethics opinion or authorization tied to these cases, and the full dockets.

What the record also shows

The Makolinski robberies and the original Local 17 indictment (December 2007) predate Hochul’s tenure (2d Cir.). Judges imposed the sentences. Banks are victims, not parties seeking leniency. The Local 17 case was handled by AUSAs Charles B. Wydysh and Anthony M. Bruce, and it ended with Kirsch convicted and sentenced to 36 months (AllWNY), a racketeering conviction the 2d Circuit upheld in 2018. The PAC gifts came from the national union, not Local 17 as the Chronicle claimed, and the Chronicle’s “$250,000 in union cash” claim is not supported by FEC records. No evidence has emerged that any donation affected any case. Hochul was reported to have recused himself from the unrelated Steve Pigeon case (WBFO).

When he left office in October 2016, William Hochul told WBFO that his office had conflict procedures in place and that “as to what I recuse myself on or what I don’t recuse myself on, generally does not become public” (WBFO, Oct. 6, 2016). He denied that his wife’s office had ever posed a problem in doing his job.