G. Steven Pigeon – once a powerful figure in Western New York politics who flaunted his close ties to Andrew Cuomo and Bill and Hillary Clinton and also advised billionaire Tom Golisano – now wears orange jail garb behind bars as an accused child rapist.

His prominence as a political kingmaker in Erie County had ebbed over time, but then unraveled three years ago as he first pleaded guilty in state court to bribing a judge and then later in federal court to making an illegal campaign contribution to Cuomo.

But six counts related to accusations he raped a child – not political corruption – are what landed Pigeon, 61, in the Erie County Holding Center. He turned himself in to State Police on Thursday morning in Clarence, later appeared in a Buffalo courtroom with his hands cuffed and shackled to a chain around his waist and is now in custody without bail.

“This is rape,” Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn Jr. said of the charges. “This isn’t child molestation.”

The allegations arise less than two weeks before he’s scheduled to be sentenced in the federal case.

“It’s absolutely untrue,” Pigeon told The News on Wednesday, the night before turning himself in to State Police. He suggested that someone might be setting him up – someone whom he helped the FBI investigate.

The path to the criminal charges laid out Thursday started this summer, according to prosecutors, when the child told her mother about what allegedly took place five years ago, between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2016.

The name and age of the child are being withheld, with prosecutors saying the child is under the age of 11.
After hearing from her child, the mother spoke with an attorney who had previously done work for the family. That attorney contacted the District Attorney’s Office.

County prosecutors started investigating and then brought in State Police for help, Flynn said, because the police agency covers multiple jurisdictions.