May 20—The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to unanimously overturn the fraud conviction of developer Louis Ciminelli came as no surprise to veteran Buffalo defense attorney Paul Cambria.

The lawyer who has represented some of the most high-profile criminal defendants in Western New York and around the United States says the high court was simply following its emerging precedent of interpreting both the Constitution and the nation's laws by considering the historical context of the language contained in them.

"What the court ruled is that the withholding of details, of information (to gain an advantage in bidding on a government contract) is not the equivalent of property," Cambria said. "And property is what the (wire and mail fraud) statutes deal with. What do we, historically, know is property? It can be money, it can be real estate. It is goods as opposed to information or the lack thereof."

Ciminelli, once one of Western New York's biggest builders, was sentenced to 28 months behind bars and a half million dollar fine for his conviction in a bid-rigging scheme tied to the Buffalo Billion economic redevelopment program. A pair of Syracuse developers and one of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's top economic development aides were also convicted of participating in the pay-to-play scheme following a month-long jury trial.

Prosecutors had charged that Ciminelli won a half million dollar contract to build the Tesla Solar City plant at Riverbend in Buffalo after the bid specifications for the project were tailored to eliminate any competition. The government lawyers used a long held precedent of the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals known as the "right to control theory."

The theory held that someone could be found guilty under the federal wire and mail fraud laws if prosecutors could prove that the person had "schemed to deprive a victim of potentially valuable economic information necessary to make discretionary economic decisions." In Ciminelli's case, that was rigging the specifications of a state construction contract so that only his company could meet those specs.

The Supreme Court, in a decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas, and joined by the other eight justices, said the long-standing appeals court theory was wrong.

"The Supreme Court has determined there is no such crime as a 'right to control' in wire fraud," said Terrence Connors, another prominent Buffalo-based white collar crime defense attorney. "They accepted the facts (in the Ciminelli case), but they ruled (those facts) do not constitute a crime under the mail or wire fraud statutes."

The decision will now become part of a lengthening group of cases that have criticized federal prosecutors for overreaching in public corruption cases against state and local officials, as well as people doing business with government.

Cambria said he believes the Ciminelli case will make clear to both people and prosecutors what is and is not criminal under the mail and wire fraud laws.

"I think it's a good thing," Cambria said. "People will know where the lines (of criminal conduct) are drawn. They court handled this in a very straight forward way. I don't have a problem with it."

Both Cambria and Connors expect that the case will be sent back to the trial court, where the charges against Ciminelli will be dismissed.