17 December 2021: NY Attorney General's Office Says JCOPE Flubbed Order to Force Cuomo to Give Up Book Deal Millions

Attorney general cites problems with ethics panel's order to Cuomo

The New York State Attorney General's office has tapped the brakes on the Joint Commission on Public Ethics' effort to force Andrew M. Cuomo to disgorge the $5.2 million by which he personally profited from his pandemic "leadership" book deal:

The state attorney general's office sent a letter to New York's ethics commission on Thursday contending the panel did not issue a valid order this week when it voted to have former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo surrender the $5.1 million that he was paid to write a book last year about his administration's early handling of the coronavirus pandemic....

...Larry Schimmel, a general counsel for Attorney General Letitia James, said in his two-page letter to Sanford Berland, the commission's executive director, that "there are procedural steps that the commission must take before the (attorney general's) Civil Recoveries Bureau can take any action."

Schimmel asserted that the referral needs to made after a "substantial basis investigation report" had been completed and detailed any violations of state Public Officers Law. Those findings also need to specify the sums of money attributable to any penalties and the details of disgorgement.

The commissioners who voted in favor of the order contend they had authority under Executive Law to revoke an approval of Cuomo's book deal that was made by one of their staff members last year, in part, because Cuomo's application had allegedly falsely claimed that no state resources would be used to produce the memoir. A recent investigative report by the state Assembly's Judiciary Committee found that state resources had been improperly used to produce the book.

If the commission rescinds its order and pursues an investigation under the state Public Officers Law, it would place the burden on JCOPE to prove its case in a proceeding that could possibly take years. Their resolution this week seeks the immediate disgorgement of Cuomo's book proceeds under a legal path that would place the onus on the former governor to prove his book deal did not violate state laws or policies.

The legal quandary may be the subject of a meeting a source said is scheduled for Monday afternoon between the attorney general's office and the ethics commission. A person familiar with the matter said several commissioners, who had deeply researched the matter, are expected to push back on the legal assertions made by the attorney general's office in the letter. Another source briefed on the matter said the meeting has not been confirmed.

What that means is that the effort to make Cuomo pay for lying to state government officials so he could personally profit to the tune of $5.2 million for a book largely produced by state government employees utilizing state government resources will take much longer than the 30 days JCOPE's order stipulated.

This latest problem exists because New York does not have an effective system for dealing with ethical misconduct by state government officials. That's largely by design, as the impotent system now in place was established by Andrew M. Cuomo.