A Republican state senator from the Niagara Falls area and his predecessor pleaded not guilty on Thursday in a pair of schemes involving payments to a spouse and a former aide, the latest in a long line of corruption cases to emanate from New York State’s capital.

The senator, Robert G. Ortt, accused of being part of a plot to pad his own income by using a no-show job for his wife, was arraigned in the Albany County courtroom of Judge Peter Lynch. Mr. Ortt succeeded George D. Maziarz, a Republican who retired in 2014, who was also arraigned on Thursday on five felony counts of filing false campaign expenditure reports.