18 February 2022: Andrew M. Cuomo's PR Staff Could Dearly Cost Cuomo in Civil Lawsuit

After tweets, Cuomo's spokesman named as defendant by 'Trooper 1'

It's become something of a running gag here at the timeline, but whenever we say Andrew M. Cuomo desperately needs better PR people and more legal help, it is because it is true.

Although Cuomo himself doesn't seem to understand how badly served his PR team is serving him, legal developments in the first civil lawsuit Cuomo is facing from his myriad of alleged sexual harassment victims have quickly emphasized how badly Cuomo continues to be served by his PR team. Which we should note has dwindled to just the person of Richard Azzopardi, whose latest PR efforts have resulted in the first civil lawsuit filed against Andrew M. Cuomo being amended to include Azzopardi as a co-defendant. Here's an excerpt from the Albany Times-Union's coverage:

Attorneys for a State Police investigator who filed a federal lawsuit against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo amended their federal complaint on Friday morning to include the former governor's spokesman, Richard Azzopardi, as a defendant in the case after he tweeted remarks a day earlier attacking her legal team.

Azzopardi, in response to lawsuit filed on behalf of the State Police investigator on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, accused her attorneys of seeking to "extort" a settlement in the case.

In response to his remarks, an amended federal complaint was filed by attorneys Valdi Licul and John S. Crain, who are with the Wigdor law firm in Manhattan, naming Azzopardi as a defendant in the case along with Cuomo, former Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa and the State Police.

Azzopardi said his remarks are "protected free speech" and that his reference to extorting money referred to a letter that Licul sent to DeRosa's attorney last September alleging that DeRosa had enabled the governor's alleged misconduct and urging her to consider some type of settlement agreement.

Douglas Wigdor, a founding partner of the law firm representing the trooper, also sent Azzopardi a message on LinkedIn, an employment-related online service, demanding that "the former governor immediately disavow the statement and that you immediately retract the statement," according to a copy of the message posted on Twitter by Azzopardi. "Otherwise, we will immediately file an action for defamation against you and the former governor and our client will add retaliation claims."

Azzopardi stood by his remarks on Friday.

"I'm not afraid of these ambulance-chasing hucksters," he said. "This is clearly protected free speech that is supported by actual facts; and while I'm no lawyer there is no way this thing against me is not going to get laughed out of court."

The 31-year-old State Police investigator, whose identity is being withheld by the Times Union, alleges Cuomo sexually harassed and inappropriately touched her after a top former aide told State Police to change the rules so that she would qualify to be placed on the former governor's protective detail.

The report continues to provide more background into the allegations raised by the state trooper who claims she was systematically targeted by Cuomo for sexual harassment. Do click through to read the whole thing!

In our previous entry, we noted that Azzopardi's response to the civil lawsuit would "mean Cuomo will be writing larger settlement checks requiring extra commas and zeroes." And that was well before we had any knowledge of the trooper's attorneys amending their lawsuit filing to include Azzopardi as a defendant, making our observation come true.

Some days, predicting the future is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Then again, that's easy when some things never change. Like Andrew M. Cuomo's desperate need for better PR people and more legal help.