27 April 2022: JCOPE Hires Lawyers to Fight Lawsuit Over Cuomo Pandemic Book Deal Profits

Ethics watchdog taps outside firm to fight Andrew Cuomo over book deal profits

New York's Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) has hired a law firm to represent it in a lawsuit involving its efforts to force Andrew M. Cuomo to give up the $5.2 million he pocketed for his pandemic "leadership" book deal, which was produced using state government resources.

The embattled public integrity commission — criticized for allowing disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo to make millions off a book deal during the deadly COVID-19 outbreak — has retained the global firm Hogan Lovells to defend it in a lawsuit filed by Cuomo earlier this month.

Cuomo claims the ethics watchdog acted with “extraordinary bias” against him by trying to force him to return the profits after initially approving the $5.2 million contract for “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

JCOPE has an existing $300,000 contract with Hogan Lovells.

The firm has been awarded more than $50 million in state government contracts since 2009, including helping CUNY clean up a spending scandal with its research foundation and providing legal services to SUNY’s hospitals and representing the state Assembly.

JCOPE was forced to turn to outside counsel because state Attorney General Letitia James, whose office typically defends state agencies in litigation, declined to represent the commission, citing a conflict, sources said.

Like many of JCOPE's actions, this one is overdue. JCOPE will be replaced by a new ethics commission in July 2022, the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (CELG), which raises the question of how the various legal actions JCOPE is pursuing might proceed when that happens.