Southern District U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced this morning that he will be holding a press conference at noon to detail charges against Navnoor Kang, a former portfolio manager at the New York state pension fund and two broker-dealers, Deborah Kelley and Gregg Schonhorn, for participating in an alleged “pay-for-play” scheme involving the fund.

According to an indictment, from January 2014 to February 2016, Kang served as director of fixed income and portfolio strategy and was responsible for investing more than $53 billion in fixed income securities.

The indictment says that there was an agreement among Kang, Kelley and Schonhorn to pay Kang bribes in the form of “entertainment, travel, lavish meals, prostitutes, nightclub bottle service, narcotics, luxury gifts, and cash payments” among other things, in exchange for fixed-income business.

The value of the alleged bribe was more than $1 million, Bharara’s office said, including such gifts as trips to New Orleans and Montreal, a ski trip to Park City, Utah, a $17,400 luxury wrist watch, tickets to Broadway shows and the U.S. Open, cocaine and crack cocaine, as well as thousands of dollars for strippers and prostitutes.

Kang steered more than $2 billion in fixed-income business to the brokers, the indictment says, which resulted in millions in commissions.

The state pension fund was the subject of a major pay-to-play scandal during the tenure of the former comptroller, Alan Hevesi, who was sentenced to prison in 2011 and was paroled in 2012. He preceded the current comptroller, Tom DiNapoli.

Update: Here’s a statement from DiNapoli:

“The New York State Common Retirement Fund has absolutely no tolerance for self-dealing, and we are outraged by Mr. Kang’s shocking betrayal of his responsibilities. In February 2016, he was dismissed. As the criminal indictment says, he secretly circumvented our rigorous ethical standards and policies. When his misconduct was uncovered by federal authorities, our inspector general worked with law enforcement officials to uncover the extent of his scheme. We thank U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the Securities Exchange Commission and the FBI for their immediate and professional approach to pursuing this wrongdoing. As U.S. Attorney Bharara states in the indictment, the CRF strictly forbids this conduct, and we will continue to assist federal authorities.”

Update x2: Asked about the case late Wednesday morning ahead of the Bharara press conference, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he had not yet seen the indictment. But he did malign the fact that the New York comptroller is the pension fund’s sole trustee while other states have boards that control their funds.

“The temptation for corruption and bribery and bid-rigging is very, very high given the system we have,” Cuomo said, noting that he brought a pay-to-play pension fund case against former Comptroller Alan Hevesi when Cuomo was attorney general.

“It is a chronic problem,” he added. “It has been in New York state. It has been in controller’s offices across the board, but not as bad as in New York because in New York we have the sole trustee.”

Cuomo, who was speaking an unrelated press conference at his Manhattan office, and DiNapoli have been feuding in recent months as the comptroller has suggested that more oversight over state development projects conducted by SUNY and CUNY be given to his office. That call followed the arrest of one of Cuomo’s former top aides and the former head of SUNY Polytechnic Institute in a corruption case also brought by Bharara.

Read the legal papers here: