24 October 2022: U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik Pledges Congressional Probe of Cuomo's Deadly Directive

We're playing a bit of catch up following our last "live" post on 13 October 2022. We added this story to the timeline on 30 October 2022.

Stefanik pledges investigation into Cuomo nursing home order if GOP takes House majority

The run-up to the 2022 mid-term elections have featured very little news about Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals, but this story broke through the election noise. Here's an excerpt of WRGB's coverage:

Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik appearing in Rensselaer County Monday to make a big announcement.

She is pledging a congressional investigation into New York's nursing home deaths during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rep. Stefanik says this investigation would look into former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s March 2020 order that saw COVID-19 positive residents readmitted to nursing homes. That order has been blamed for thousands of deaths. Stefanik appeared outside the county's Van Rensselaer Manor nursing home in East Greenbush....

Stefanik said,

“Make no mistake there must be accountability and there must be transparency and answers... That did not abide by CMS guidance.”

Stefanik says if Republicans take the majority in Congress after the midterms, they would have subpoena power -- so they could compel Cuomo to testify.

The lack of legal subpoena power to compel testimony about Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals has been a consistent factor limiting the few probes that have taken place to date. It's a much needed remedy to the alternative of sweeping the scandals under the rug.

16 October 2022: Janice Dean Raps Replacement NY Governor Hochul for Lack of Action on Cuomo COVID Nursing Home Deaths

We're playing a bit of catch up following our last "live" post on 13 October 2022. We added this story to the timeline on 30 October 2022.

I believed Hochul, but her probe of COVID nursing-home deaths in New York is ‘damn’ late

As we suspected, there have hardly been any news items covering Andrew M. Cuomo's 25 March 2020 directive and its deadly consequences as the media has been mostly focused on the runup to the 8 November 2022 mid-term elections.

But not entirely, as this op-ed from Janice Dean demonstrates. As a member of one of the thousands of families who were harmed by Andrew M. Cuomo's negligent policies, she expressed her disappointment in this op-ed. Here's an excerpt:

Hochul listened sympathetically to my husband, Sean, as he painfully explained what it was like losing both his parents within two weeks of each other and not being able to see or comfort them. My friends, Peter and Daniel Arbeeny, gave Hochul their father’s death certificate and asked why he wasn’t counted in the whitewash of nursing-home ­fatalities. I commented after our meeting that Hochul’s actions would speak louder than words, and a year later we have seen nothing to indicate she has been true to her promise. Her “blue-ribbon panel” into the “good, bad and ugly” decisions made during the pandemic has never happened.

Peter Arbeeny, a lifelong Democrat, says he often wonders: If Cuomo were a Republican, would we “still be here two years later waiting for the Democratic machine to start an investigation with subpoena power?”

Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Republican running for governor against Hochul, has promised families if he wins to “appoint a special prosecution my first day in office to investigate and prosecute any crimes regarding the order and the cover up.” That’s something that should happen regardless of who wins in November.

My friend and fellow advocate, Assemblyman Ron Kim, who helped facilitate the meeting between grieving families and Hochul last October, is still holding out hope that she will be true to her word, but argues she can’t choose consultants to do the report. It needs to be an “independent commission with full subpoena and investigative powers. This cannot be like the 2020 DOH report that went back to then-Governor Cuomo where he controlled the facts and the narrative.”

Replacement NY Governor Kathy Hochul's failure to follow through on such an independent probe raises legitimate questions about her leadership. Which we view as entirely self-inflicted. Why she, as someone who had no role in the formation, implementation, or execution of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive would not pursue an independent investigation of excess COVID deaths in New York's nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic is a glaring, unanswered question.

13 October 2022: Federal Court Allows COVID Negligence Lawsuit Against Nursing Home to Proceed

target="_blank">Court Allows COVID-19 Negligence Claim to Proceed Against Long Term Care Facility

In what may be a bellwether ruling, a federal court will allow a COVID-19 negligence lawsuit filed against a nursing home to go forward. Though the specific case involves a Philadelphia nursing home, the piercing of legal immunity granted by a state governor for COVID deaths may soon have a direct bearing on cases across the United States.

In a surprising ruling for nursing facilities throughout Pennsylvania and elsewhere, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania declined to dismiss a complaint against a nursing home alleging negligence in protecting residents from COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic. In doing so, the court determined that the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2005 (PREP Act) and Gov. Tom Wolf’s March 2020 order pursuant to the Pennsylvania emergency management services code (PEMSC order) do not immunize nursing homes and other similar facilities from negligence claims.

The case involves the death of a resident at a suburban Philadelphia nursing home during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic March-April 2020. The resident’s estate alleged that the nursing home was negligent because it did not enforce the implementation of personal protective equipment for staff, did not isolate or properly socially distance the resident from other residents with COVID-19, and did not implement proper infectious disease protocols, leading to the resident’s contraction of COVID-19 and death.

This ruling may open the door for families harmed by the deadly negligence that was green-lighted in states that followed the example of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive to pursue litigation for the damages and deaths that resulted. As such, we expect this case may soon be elevated to federal appeals courts as the nursing home industry that benefited from such immunity arrangements will push back because of their new exposure to adverse judgments.

7 October 2022: Cuomo Lawyers Want AG, NY Assembly Impeachment Probe Files

Cuomo files motions seeking disclosure of attorney general, Assembly misconduct investigation documents

Legal developent! Andrew M. Cuomo's attorneys are seeking copies of the files assembled by New York's state attorney general's office and the New York Assembly's Judiciary Committee in their respective investigations of Cuomo's alleged sexual harassment of multiple women during his tenure as New York's governor.

Attorneys for former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo have filed motions seeking thousands of documents from both a top legislative committee and Attorney General Letitia James' office related to their respective investigations of the ex-governor.

Cuomo's attorney Rita Glavin asked a federal trial court to compel the state Assembly’s Judiciary Committee as well as the attorney general's office to turn over documents and investigative materials that were used in James’ probe of sexual misconduct allegations against the former governor as well as the legislative report the committee released a few months after Cuomo resigned in August 2021....

The former governor filed a subpoena seeking the materials in July, months after the trooper's lawsuit accused him of sexual harassment including inappropriately touching her and kissing her on the cheek when she served on Cuomo's protective detail.

Both the Assembly Judiciary Committee and James have refused to produce documents in compliance with the subpoena, the motions claim....

According to the motions, the committee and the attorney general's office have claimed attorney-client privilege and deemed the requested documents irrelevant in response to Cuomo's subpoenas.

It's not much, but it confirms that not much has happened over the last several months. At least this story was on topic for Andrew M. Cuomo's legal troubles. It certainly beats the alternative of paying attention to whatever it is that Chris Cuomo, the hapless, journalism-ethics compromised brother of the resigned-in-disgrace former governor, is doing these days.

We don't anticipate much news until after the mid-term elections on 8 November 2022, and then, not for a couple of weeks after that.