Buffalo, N.Y., contractor CEO Louis Ciminelli officially pleaded guilty on Jan. 6 to one count of wire fraud conspiracy in a New York City federal court as part of a plea deal that ends his prosecution in the long-running “Buffalo Billion” pay-to-play scheme in the state, and that of other defendants. The former head of LPCiminelli was ordered to forfeit $1.6 million, pay a $250,000 fine and was sentenced to time served.
The plea follows a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned his initial 2018 conviction based on its legal theory but remanded the case to a lower court. Ciminelli had been serving a 28-month sentence in a federal prison near Tucson, but was released when the high court took the case.
Federal attorneys attempted a new prosecution in 2025 using a different legal approach that was challenged by Ciminelli’s attorneys, but parties agreed to the plea deal in late December.
Co-defendants Steven Aiello and Joseph Gerardi,executives of Syracuse, N.Y.-based COR Development, also accepted similar plea deals last month related to their roles in the scheme to steer contracts for a state-financed industrial megaproject in Buffalo, at a site that now hosts a Tesla factory. They had received
Alain Kaloyeros, former head of the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute in Albany, who had been sentenced to 3.5-year prison term, pleaded guilty as well and paid a $100,000 fine.
