7 October 2021: New U.S. Attorneys to Oversee Cuomo COVID Nursing Home Scandals Criminal Probes

Brooklyn and Manhattan get new Senate-confirmed federal prosecutors

On 6 October 2021, the U.S. Senate confirmed two new U.S. Attorneys for the Brooklyn and Manhattan divisions, which may impact the two offices' federal criminal investigations of Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandal and cover-up.

Damian Williams, 41, was confirmed to be the US attorney for Manhattan’s Southern District, while Breon Peace was confirmed for the Eastern District — based in Brooklyn and including Long Island. Both must still be sworn in before they take up their new positions.

Williams — currently the chief of the securities and commodities unit at the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office — will be the first black person to serve in the role.

He will be replacing Audrey Strauss — mother-in-law of Melissa DeRosa, the top aide to disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. DeRosa admitted to covering up the state’s nursing home death toll from COVID-19 so that the real numbers couldn’t “be used against us” by federal prosecutors during the Trump administration.

Melissa DeRosa is intricately involved in each of the Cuomo administration's major scandals. Exit question: Would Andrew M. Cuomo and the members of his administration implicated in the COVID nursing home deaths scandals have attempted to get away with what they pulled if DeRosa's mother-in-law was not serving in the U.S. Attorney's office?