Andrew Cuomo may get to KEEP $5M in book profits: AG Letitia James claims collection order is illegal after the disgraced former governor was given 30 days to turn over the money
Fallen ex-New York governor Andrew Governor may get to keep his $5.1 million pandemic book money thanks to his arch-nemesis, Attorney General Letitia James.
On Monday, the state ethics commission ordered Cuomo to return the profits from his coronavirus tome 'American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic' to his publisher within 30 days.
The Joint Commission on Public Ethics, which oversees lobbyists and government officials, ruled that the disgraced state executive used state employees to write and tout the book and would have to return his gains.
Disgraced Gov. Andrew Cuomo, once a supporter of New York state Attorney General Letitia James, but the relationship came apart after her investigation concluded that he sexually harassed 11 women
Nearly a dozen women accused ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (shown here with his mother Matilda Cuomo and daughters Cara, Mariah and Michaela) of making sexually charged comments or inappropriately touching
JCOPE referred the collection of the cash to James's office.
But the state AG's lawyer dashed off a letter Thursday halting the process, saying that JCOPE had not gone through the proper procedures to justify its decision.
The ethics watchdog would have to produce an investigative report, outlining which laws were violated and what sums and penalties it was seeking, the attorney general's top lawyer Larry Schimmel wrote.
Any referral to the attorney general´s office 'should also include additional clarifications,' the letter said, including 'a record of the administrative process, and the statutory authority for the decision, the amount of the imposed fines and penalties, and a determination concerning the appropriate amount of disgorgement attributable to the violation of law.'
Additionally, the committee would need to document any communications it had with Cuomo or his lawyers about the order, and then show it had exhausted efforts to collect the debt.
'It is therefore premature to ask the OAG to begin collection efforts before a demand for payment is made to Mr. Cuomo, or his counsel, and he has had an opportunity to address the demand,' Schimmel wrote.
Cuomo's lawyer, Jim McGuire, who had called the commission's attempt to seize the book profits illegal, said the letter was another sign that JCOPE was acting outside the law.
'JCOPE´s actions violated fundamental constitutional rights and flagrantly exceeded its statutory authority,' said McGuire. 'It is not at all surprising that the lawlessness of JCOPE´s latest unlawful action is being recognized as just that.'
'American Crisis' came out in October 2020, published by Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House. Months later, Cuomo resigned amid allegations he sexually harassed at least 11 women.
New York's top ethics watchdog ordered fallen-Gov. Andrew Cuomo to return $5M in book profits to his publisher after determining that he used state employees to write and promote it
Cuomo had been granted approval for his book deal in July 2020 by the commission's staff, after his lawyer said he would not use any state personnel or resources to produce his book and that he would write it 'entirely on his own time.'
An investigation commissioned by the state Assembly concluded that, in fact, state resources and personnel were used to prepare, write, edit and publish the book.
Cuomo was forced out of office after James's office found that he sexually harassed 11 women.
Shortly afterward she announced her bid for governor, but bowed out weeks later, saying she wanted to focus on the investigations started during her term.
Cuomo's spokesman has said any state employees who worked on the book did so on their personal time, not during work hours.
The ex-state executive had accused James of being motivated by politics, but she was absent from his latest broadside against top elected officials.
'This had nothing to do with the law and is evidence of political attacks by the appointees of Governor Hochul, Speaker Heastie and Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins,' Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said. 'Ironically, these Hochul, Heastie and Stewart-Cousins appointees taking the position that staff cannot do non-governmental volunteer work on their personal time damns them and their own employees, who should now be held to the same standard for volunteer work on their bosses' re-election campaigns.'
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