When U.S. intelligence officials accused North Korea last year of hacking into computers at Sony Pictures Entertainment as payback for an unflattering movie depiction of Kim Jong-Un, little did anyone think there would be an Albany connection.

But when WikiLeaks made public on Thursday a searchable database of tens of thousands of Sony documents and emails, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s name popped up often in the search field. Emails and documents showed what many people already knew: Hollywood loves the governor and the governor’s campaign wanted Hollywood’s money.

Buried within the more than 150,000 emails and other documents are passages by gushing movie executives eager to raise money for the governor because, as film moguls reminded email recipients, he’s been an eager supporter of the industry through hefty tax breaks.

The emails depict Sony executives pushing to bundle $50,000 in personal donations to the governor’s 2014 campaign after the company maxed out on donations to Cuomo. In one back-and-forth with a close friend of Cuomo, executives agreed to try to help find a ride for Cuomo on a private jet back to New York after a Hollywood fundraiser thrown for the governor.

Another exchange – a month before that fundraiser – features a Sony executive bragging that a $26 million New York State film tax credit payment due the company was likely to be expedited after he had reached out to the Cuomo administration’s economic development agency for help.

The governor’s office had no comment Friday, a day after Sony officials said WikiLeaks was wrong to make public a search engine to make it easier to comb through the emails and other documents that had been stolen and released by hackers last year.

The governor has been the loudest voice in Albany to support what is now a $420 million annual tax break program for the film and TV industry, a program Cuomo and his industry allies say has created jobs and spurred economic development.

The emails show how much Hollywood appreciated the tax credit program for film making.

In December 2013, Keith Weaver, Sony’s head of government affairs, wrote to a colleague after he reached out to a New York economic development official for help with an outstanding $26 million tax credit due Sony.

“It looks like Gov’t Affairs will be effective in expediting” the payment, he wrote, “in time for our 1/15/14 tax filing date.” He added: “our effectiveness will mean realizing a significant cash benefit in 2014 versus the next likely opportunity in 2017. Happy Holidays!”

Weaver’s request for help had gone to Rhoda Glickman at Cuomo’s economic development agency. Glickman is the mother of Jonathan Glickman, Motion Picture Group President at MGM, who in January 2014 asked film executives to donate to Cuomo’s campaign.’’

Rhoda Glickman worked for Cuomo when he was federal housing secretary and her husband is Dan Glickman, a former Kansas congressman, U.S. agriculture secretary and former president of the Motion Picture Association of America, the film industry’s main lobbying group.

“Will check – Send me exactly everything you need to get resolved,” she wrote within a couple hours before Weaver notified Sony officials of his good financial news.

In another email in July 2014, one Sony executive writes to another: “Thanks to Governor Cuomo, we have a great production incentive environment in NY and a strong piracy advocate that’s actually done more than talk about our problems.”

A state economic development spokesman said distribution of the Sony credits was not fast-tracked because of the firm’s request and was made in line with “every other application” by film companies. The state said 688 separate applications for the credits have been made by private companies since 2011, and that the program has been “responsible for more than 60,000 jobs and $9.8 billion in spending” by companies the past two years.

Bundling donations

The emails released by WikiLeaks depict executives at Sony working to bundle together $50,000 in donations from individuals to Cuomo’s campaign. State law forbids corporate donations higher than $5,000, but it has a far larger individual donation limit.

Bundling, in which donations from a like cause are group together, is legal and is a common way in Albany for donors to impress politicians with large contributions.

In early January last year, Sony executives were busy planning for a Hollywood fundraiser that Sony CEO Michael Lynton helped to organize for Cuomo at the home of Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairman Jim Gianopulos.

In a Jan. 7, 2014 email, Sony executive Weaver wrote to Lynton that the Cuomo “people would like us to support in the following ways.” The requests included Lynton lending his name to the invite host committee and a commitment to raise $50,000 by the end of July. On board with the idea, the email states, were NBCUniversal, Fox, Paramount and CBS.

“Disney and WB are pending,” the email states.

“$50K is a heavy lift since most of it needs to come from individual contributors … but I recommend we do it. Cuomo has been a strong protector of the film incentive – even amidst recent criticisms of the program,” Weaver wrote to Lynton.

Fundraiser and plane

In another email before the January Hollywood fundraiser, Jonathan Glickman, Motion Picture Group President at MGM, urges friends to donate to Cuomo’s campaign because he has been “an aggressive advocate of the entertainment industry,” and added how Cuomo had extended “the country’s richest film incentive through 2019.”

In emails with the subject line “Gov in Cali,” close Cuomo friend Andrew Farkas, a New York businessman, exchanges comments over the Hollywood fundraiser on Jan. 23, 2014. After leaving his federal housing secretary post, Cuomo worked for Farkas’ company and became a millionaire.

Farkas, in an email to Sony’s Lynton, writes that Cuomo “asked if anyone attending the (Hollywood) event might be flying back to ny Friday morning. He would very much appreciate hitching a ride. 405 hours of exclusive time with the gov of ny is a premium oppty.”

Lynton wrote back that he would be at the fundraiser and will “canvas (quietly) the room to see if anyone headed that way.” He added, “NY state needs a state plane.”

Farkas responded, “That will never happen. Especially with (New York City Mayor) Mr. de Blasio in office.”

The state, actually, does provide plane and helicopter services to Cuomo for going to official state business events.

Cuomo many times takes “in-kind” donations to fundraisers, as the state election board calls the non-cash contributions, from companies and individuals who provide him with private jet service.

In the middle of 2014, Sony executives, six months after the Hollywood fundraiser for the governor, were busy getting contributions together as part of the overall $50,000 “commitment,” as one email called it, to helping Cuomo’s re-election effort.

After one $5,000 contribution, the Sony executive got a reply from the Cuomo campaign thanking her for the donation.

“By becoming part of the campaign, you’re helping Andrew stand up for the people of New York,” the email said.

Criticism

The large tax breaks given to film and television companies have been the subject of criticism by groups that say the industry does not need the incentives and that the dollar amounts have grown too massive.

It is a $420 million annual program, meaning the state gives away $420 million a year to the film industry in tax breaks.

The tax credit program for film companies has critics on the left and right political spectrums, though governors and lawmakers for years have heartily embraced them. It was begun in 2004 by then-Gov. George Pataki, expanded by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and extended in 2013 for another five years by Cuomo, who also enhanced the benefits – though not the overall $420 million program’s costs. Changes in 2013 included better breaks for films shot upstate and “Jimmy’s Law,” named after “The Tonight Show’”s Jimmy Fallon and the new talk show credits approved that year.

“This is the most gratuitous, indefensible giveaway in the state tax code, bar none,” said E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a budget watchdog group.