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Northern Westchester resident Joseph Percoco, of South Salem, who was serving time in a Hudson Valley prison, was transferred to a halfway house, according to the federal Residential Reentry Management office in Brooklyn.
Percoco, age 53, had been convicted of accepting $300,000 in bribes from an energy company and was sentenced to serve six years behind bars. There were still more than two years before his scheduled release on April 22, 2024.
Percoco was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and one count of solicitation of bribes or gratuities and acquitted of two extortion charges in 2019 related to his acceptance of $300,000 in bribes to benefit Competitive Power Ventures, an energy company that sought to build the power plant in the Hudson Valley.
Under federal law, convicts are eligible to spend up to one full year in a halfway house before being released from custody.
Percoco had been incarcerated at the Otisville Correctional Facility in Orange County before his release. He previously applied for - and was denied - a compassionate release from the facility, citing health problems including diabetes and hypertension amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a letter to Judge Valerie Caproni dated Sept. 13, 2018, Percoco expressed his remorse, calling his position in public service, “the privilege of (his) lifetime.” He noted that he “regrets that (he) has brought shame and embarrassment upon (his) former colleagues.”
“I lay awake at night filled not with the fear of what is to come for me, or the pain and embarrassment that I have brought upon myself, but with tremendous remorse for my actions and regret for the damage I have caused to others. I live with those feelings and that weight every minute of every day of my life,” he wrote.
“The choices that have brought me before this court were my choices and my choices alone. Integrity and careful attention to the rules were always virtues I demanded from each and every one of my colleagues. I failed to live up to my own high standards."
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