Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was ordered Tuesday to turn over the proceeds from his pandemic book deal – an estimated $5.1 million – to the state Attorney General’s office within the next 30 days, following a probe by a state ethics panel.
The profits from Cuomo’s ‘American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic’ came into question in October, when the Empire State’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) announced that it was conducting an internal inquiry that was reassessing its initial approval of Cuomo’s 2020 book.
The ethics agency commission voted 12-1 on Tuesday to order the ousted governor to fork over his memoir’s profits to the state Attorney General’s office, after multiple investigations found Cuomo used state resources to produce and promote the tell-all book.
‘Gov. Cuomo is not legally entitled to retain compensation… for any form of outside activity related to the book,’ commissioner David McNamara, a Senate Republican appointee, said.
The ruling puts state Attorney General Letitia James in the hot seat, after her office’s investigative report into a slew of sexual harassment allegations leveled against the then-governor by several current and former staffers, forced the disgraced Democrat to resign over the summer.
Now, James is poised to determine how to redistribute the book’s profits – whether it be to the state, the publisher or some other body. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Cuomo has already placed $1 million of the book’s proceeds in a trust for his three daughters and donated another $500,000 to charity.
The ruling comes as the latest blow to the Cuomo family, following newscaster Chris Cuomo’s highly publicized firing from his $6million-a-year CNN gig earlier this month for helping his brother Andrew battle sexual harassment allegations.
Moments before the decision on Tuesday, an attorney for Cuomo announced that his office would be mounting a legal challenge to the panel’s order for his client to return the proceeds from the self-penned book.
Cuomo had touted himself as a hero in regards to his handling of the pandemic despite being embroiled in a scandal over New York’s nursing home deaths to to COVID – a number that his administration misrepresented, according to reports.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was ordered Tuesday to turn over the proceeds from his pandemic book deal – an estimated $5.1 million – to the state Attorney General’s office within the next 30 days, following a probe by a state ethics panel
After analyzing the methods Cuomo used to prepare the tell-all, the ethics agency voted to revoke its prior approval of the book – which allowed the governor to earn outside income from its sales while in office, concluding that Cuomo violated pledges to not use state resources or government staffers during its preparation.
Tuesday’s resolution, drafted by McNamara, states that Cuomo now ‘lacked the legal authority to engage in outside activity and receive compensation in regard to the book’ after JCOPE rescinded its initial approval last month.
‘It is ordered that by no later than 30 days from the date of this resolution, Gov. Cuomo pay over to the attorney general of the State of New York an amount equal to the compensation paid to him for his outside activities related to the book,’ the panel’s resolution states.
The book, released in October 2020, centered on Cuomo’s early handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in the state
‘JCOPE’s actions today are unconstitutional, exceed its own authority and appear to be driven by political interests rather than the facts and the law,’ attorney Jim McGuire told The New York Times ahead of the ruling.
‘Should they seek to enforce this action, we’ll see them in court.’
Crown Publishing had offered the former governor more than $5 million for the manuscript – a risk at the time considering Cuomo’s previous memoir sold fewer than 4,000 hardcover copies. But the then-governor was receiving ample attention from the media over his handling of the pandemic and touted himself as a hero.
Tax records show he received the bulk of his advance, $3.12 million, in 2020 and was expected to receive an additional $2 million in installments over two years. Crown has since stopped promoting the book following the New York nursing home and sexual harassment scandals. It had also canceled plans for a paperback edition.
In April, the former governor said he put $1 million of the proceeds from the book into a trust fund for his three daughters and donated $500,000 to non-profit fundraising affiliate United Way, Spectrum reported. It’s so far unknown how Cuomo is going to give back such funds.
Its top staff approved Cuomo’s request to write the book, titled American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.
But they did so without the usual vote put to all 14 members ahead of a request by the governor to earn income from a private source, with the deal instead approved by other members of the panel.
Cuomo’s replacement, Governor Kathy Hochul, has appointed a new chairman, Queens-based Attorney Jose Nieves, who will oversee the probe.
JCOPE which oversees ethics and lobbying in New York, voted to hire an outside law firm to ‘conduct an inquiry into the facts, circumstances, policies and practices’ over the approval, the Daily News reported.
Cuomo’s request to write the memoir was approved in the Summer of 2020 without having submitted the book contract to the panel. Multiple members of the panel at that time have since resigned.
That led to several commissioners to complain at the time that they were shut out of the decisions, wxxinews.com reported.
The commission itself has been criticized for the panel’s lack of transparency when pursuing ethics investigations, The New York Post reported.
Cuomo received permission from state ethics commissioners last year to write his book — with conditions.
He had to write the book on ‘his own time and not on state time,’ according to state ethics rules. And, ‘no state property, personnel or other resources’ could be used.
Yet, several people who work for the state did work on the book, including former Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa and the Director of Governor’s Offices Stephanie Benton, according to reports in The New York Times, The Times-Union, of Albany, and the USA TODAY State News Network.
Cuomo claims his aides offered their time voluntarily and denies allegations of impropriety.
Governor Kathy Hochul, who replaced Cuomo after he resigned, filled in two JCOPE vacancies following acting chair- and Cuomo appointee- James Dering’ resignation this weekend, the New York Post reported.
Hochul appointed Queens Attorney Jose Nieves as JCOPE chairman and Buffalo Attorney Sharon Stern Gerstman as commissioner.
‘Jose Nieves and Sharon Stern Gerstman are well-respected and talented professionals who will uphold our commitment to open, ethical governing and help to transform not just state government, but more importantly, people’s image and perception of their state government,’ Hochul said in a statement.
Cuomo’s book, which was released in October 2020, was tied to the governor’s daily COVID-19 briefings in 2020 during the height of the pandemic in New York.
He was hailed as a hero during the early days of the COVID outbreak, when New York was the global COVID epicenter, thanks to his matter-of-fact briefings peppered with personal reflections.
Cuomo is also under criminal investigation related to an allegation that he groped a former staffer at the governor’s mansion in November.
It was the most serious among the sexual harassment claims made by 11 women outlined in a report released by James’ earlier last month.
On August 31 is was revealed that the Albany County Sheriff’s office had issued subpoenas in the investigation into a criminal complaint filed by the alleged victim, Brittany Commissio, the Times Union reported.
Additionally Cuomo faces criminal probes by the FBI and the Brooklyn US Attorney’s office over Covid-19 nursing homes deaths.
He denies all the allegations made against him.