He was the closest aide to Governor Cuomo. Now he goes to jail for 6 years.

Cuomo said after the verdict that he thought there should be "no tolerance for any breach of public trust". Last month, in her only debate with Ms. Nixon, he called Mr. Percoco's sentence "painful". adding, "He's going to pay a terrible price."

Just before the conviction of Mr. Percoco on Thursday, he apologized for his actions.

"I live with the consequences every day of my life," he said. "I wake up every night thinking about things I could have done differently."

"For any prejudice that I may have caused to my family, friends and residents of the State of New York, I sincerely apologize."

Mr. Percoco, who had been Cuomo's assistant executive secretary, had also been close to his father, Governor Mario M. Cuomo, for whom Mr. Percoco had gone to work after graduation. Andrew Cuomo once described Mr. Percoco as "the third son of my father, whom I sometimes think that he loved most."

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Prosecutors had sought to demonstrate that Mr. Percoco, in addition to taking bribes, had openly and impunityously flouted the state's ethical rules. At one point, they introduced basic data showing that Mr. Percoco had come in and out of the taxpayer's paid office after leaving the state government to work on Mr. Cuomo's campaign. After the trial ended, Mr. Cuomo appeared to acknowledge that he was aware of Mr. Percoco's presence, although he said he thought Mr. Percoco was there to take care of " transition issues ".

In building his case against Mr. Percoco, the government relied heavily on another longtime ally of the Cuomo family: Todd R. Howe, a long-time lobbyist and Albany Insider who had been a mentor for M Percoco.

Mr. Howe was Mario Cuomo's director of programming in 1991 and later worked for Andrew Cuomo when he was housing and urban development secretary under Clinton's presidency. Prosecutors said Mr. Howe arranged for the bribes to be paid to Mr. Percoco by the utility, CPV, and a Syracuse-based developer, COR Development, both of which were Mr. Howe's clients.