15 March 2022: JCOPE Tries Again to Force Cuomo to Give Up Proceeds from Corrupt Pandemic "Leadership" Book Deal Profits

To force Cuomo to repay millions, ethics commission mulls new tact

This report covers another front in Andrew M. Cuomo's ongoing legal battles, updating the status of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) ongoing efforts to force Cuomo to give up the millions in income he gained through his COVID pandemic book deal. Here's a summary of what JCOPE's commissioners are now considering for their next steps forward, which relates to a meeting they held on Friday, 11 March 2022:

At a special meeting on Friday, commissioners of the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics may adopt a new strategy in their attempt to force ex-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to repay $5.1 million in book royalties, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.

Some of the ethics panel's commissioners are mulling a plan that would cut state Attorney General Letitia James out of the process of seeking the $5.1 million repayment. In December, James' office expressed concern that the commissioners could not seek Cuomo's "disgorgement" of the royalties he earned in 2020 without a full investigation into whether he misused state resources to produce the book — an inquiry that could last months or years.

Under the new plan being considered, the ethics commissioners would revoke their staff's July 2020 approval of Cuomo request to write "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic." JCOPE would issue an order demanding that the former governor quickly repay the money to the book publisher, Penguin Random House. And instead of James' office enforcing the order and deciding how to handle the sum — as JCOPE prescribed in an original Dec. 14 motion — the commission would potentially hire its own counsel to enforce the repayment.

While a number of JCOPE commissioners are weighing the idea, sources said the plan could change before Friday or be tabled for a future meeting.

Established by Andrew M. Cuomo, JCOPE has a long history of looking the other way at Cuomo's malfeasance in office. Or at least it did, up until Cuomo resigned in disgrace to avoid impeachment over sexual harassment allegations, when the commissioners he had appointed to the body were forced to resign themselves and were replaced. Consequently, JCOPE is trying to establish itself as a credible enforcer of ethics requirements for public officials for the first time after 10+ years of feckless dithering under Cuomo's corrupt influence.

That's to say they new to this whole ethics oversight thing in New York. We'll see how the proposed change in tactics works out.