27 January 2022: JCOPE Subpoena Probes Cuomo Pandemic 'Volunteers'

Subpoena probes Cuomo's pandemic 'volunteers'

Since Andrew M. Cuomo left power, New York's Joint Commission on Public Ethics has become more interested in abuses of power that occurred by members of his administration, contrasting with the troubled ethics oversight commission previous lack of such interest. This report indicates JCOPE will investigate the individuals whom Cuomo put into positions of authority while exempting them from scrutiny under the state's public officers law by declaring them to be 'volunteers'. Here's the introduction to the report, summarizing JCOPE's action and interest:

On Tuesday, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics passed a motion to issue the informational subpoena concerning the activities of volunteers in assisting Cuomo's COVID-19 pandemic response, according to the commissioner who made the motion.

While unpaid by New York’s government, some of the volunteers – such as one-time top Cuomo aide Larry Schwartz – held crucial roles in Cuomo’s response to the crisis.

Schwartz served as the state’s “vaccine czar,” leading efforts to distribute vaccines to the state’s population, while continuing in his day job as chief strategy officer at OTG Management, an airport concessions company that has extensive interests before state government.

Under executive orders issued near the pandemic’s outset in 2020, Cuomo exempted COVID-19 volunteers from rules normally requiring state employees requiring them to file financial disclosures, intended to ban them from receiving valuable gifts from people seeking state business, and other ethics provisions. (Schwartz did have to file an annual financial disclosure as a board member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.)

JCOPE Commissioner Gary Lavine said that under his motion made on Tuesday, the subpoena would seek a list of people who were deemed “volunteers” and were exempted from the state Public Officers law; all volunteers for whom a conflict of interest had been expressly indicated, including with the individuals' normal, private sector work duties; and any arrangements that had been made for dealing with those conflicts.

The Albany Times Union's report indicates the newspaper has previously attempted to acquire the information JCOPE is now seeking back in 2020 through a Freedom of Information Law request, but were stonewalled by the Cuomo administration. With the administration of replacement NY Governor Kathy Hochul increasingly willing to turn a blind eye toward wrongdoing by state officials under Cuomo during the pandemic, its response to JCOPE's new subpoena will give a measure of how interested it is in probing members of Cuomo's still-existing political crony network within the state government.