27 April 2023: Cuomo Sues Ethics Commission Reviewing Book Deal

Cuomo sues ethics commission reviewing book deal

The resigned-in-disgrace former governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, emerged from his hibernation to engage in litigation against New York's new ethics commission. Here's an excerpt from this report:

As he faces still-ongoing ethics investigations into his $5 million book deal about his COVID-19 pandemic response, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now suing New York’s newest ethics commission, arguing the body is too independent from the governor to be constitutional.

The Democrat’s lawsuit comes ahead of the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Governments’ scheduled meeting on June 12, when it is expected to scrutinize the deal and allegations that the Democrat had staff members work on the book while on government time. Cuomo’s lawyers have maintained staff members worked on the book on their own time.

Because it's been several months, here's some background into the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Governments, which goes by the catchy acronym "COELIG":

COELIG was created last year to replace the much-maligned Joint Commission on Public Ethics, which was created in 2011 by then-Gov. Cuomo as an independent body to combat corruption. JCOPE originally approved the book deal in 2020, but it revoked its approval following Cuomo’s resignation, arguing Cuomo misled the ethics panel during its approval. Cuomo ultimately resigned in August 2021 following the release of a report by the state Attorney General’s office detailing multiple allegations of sexual harassment. Cuomo denies the allegations.

JCOPE repeatedly sought to force Cuomo to turn over the $5 million he received for the book deal, but a judge ultimately ruled last year Cuomo could keep the book advance. Now, the new ethics commission is picking up where JCOPE left off.

The lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court Tuesday in Albany argues the commission created last year violates the state’s Constitution, because it has, “sweeping executive law-enforcement powers, including the authority to impose penalties, and yet utterly insulates the agency from any oversight by or accountability to the executive branch.”

Cuomo's legal argument boils down to a claim that an amendment to New York's state constitution is needed for the commission to have the powers granted to it by the state legislature and signed by New York's replacement governor.

Note: This article was added to the timeline on 3 May 2023. We're playing catch-up after another action by Cuomo's legal team caught our attention....

21 April 2023: New York COVID Death Toll 21% Higher During 2020 Than Cuomo Reported

Beyond Cuomo’s deceptions: New York’s true COVID death toll

This New York Post editorial summarizes the New York State Department of Health's recent finding for the true count of COVID deaths in the state during 2020:

New state Health Department figures on COVID deaths show that then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s leadership was even deadlier than New Yorkers knew.

The new stats put the pandemic’s first-year toll at 36,337 — up 21% from what the state had admitted.

The Cuomoites only counted deaths in hospitals, care homes and similar facilities, and that practice continued even after he was hounded from office — until now.

At last, the numbers include death-certificate info to count deaths at home, as the federal Centers for Disease Control and the city Health Department did all along.

The editors continue to succinctly explain why Andrew M. Cuomo chose to cover up the full extent of those deaths by deviating from standard public health monitoring methods:

Why hide the truth? Because it undercut Cuomo’s image as the heroic man-in-charge, a narrative that helped him score a $5.1 million advance for his book “American Crisis” (largely written by staff “volunteering” their time as COVID still raged).

In the wake of his orders forcing care homes to admit contagious patients, Cuomo & Co. also undercounted deaths in those homes, eventually pleading to state legislators that they feared a federal probe by the Trump Justice Department.

None of these issues have been adequately investigated by New York state offiicals or legislators.

8 April 2023: Cuomo Faces Second Lawsuit Over COVID Nursing Home Deaths

Disgraced Gov. Cuomo sued a second time over nursing home COVID deaths

With the speed of molasses in January, the U.S. legal system is getting around to holding the resigned-in-disgrace former Governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, accountable for the outcome of his administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

The following excerpt describes the second lawsuit Cuomo will face from the survivors of the family's whose members were exposed to COVID during the time Cuomo's deadly directive was in effect in early 2020.

Disgraced governor Andrew Cuomo’s “unmitigated greed” and mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the “needless” deaths of thousands of elderly New Yorkers, a Nassau man whose mother and father died from the virus claimed in court.

Cuomo, his top aide Melissa DeRosa, and state and health officials also exhibited “deliberate indifference” toward nursing home residents, leading to as many as 15,000 avoidable COVID deaths, Sean Newman claimed in a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court on March 28.

Those deaths include Michael and Dolores Newman, who died weeks apart in early 2020, their son said.

Sean Newman’s dad Michael Newman, 84, died at the Grandell Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Long Beach on March 29 that year, his son said.

His mom Dolores, 78, died two weeks later at the Long Island Living Center in Queens, according to the filing.

Sean Newman is married to Janice Dean, who became a leading advocate for justice for the victims of the Cuomo administration's deadly directive in the months following its implementation by the state government. The lawsuit follows the state government's failure to probe the Cuomo administration's policies' role in contributing to the high COVID death toll at the state's nursing homes in early 2020.

2 April 2023: Three Years Later, No NY Leaders Held Accountable for COVID Deaths Following Deadly Directive

Three years on, NY leaders STILL not held to account for deadly COVID nursing-home order

After many weeks without any news related to New York's COVID nursing home deaths that followed Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive, Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens) has authored an op-ed decrying the lack of any meaningful probe by the state's political leaders. Here's an excerpt:

Wednesday marks 1,099 days since the Cuomo administration ordered COVID-positive nursing-home patients back into unprepared facilities.

The erasure of this fatal mandate from our state’s pandemic history is one of Albany’s most egregious and nauseating acts.

Families who lost loved ones meet this time of year with anger, frustration, hurt and disappointment. How could they not?

March is a slow-moving month of hell because their nearest and dearest were caught up in New York’s deadliest policy mistake and no one will acknowledge it.

That failure includes the elected leaders of the state legislature. Kim lays out why that's a very big problem:

Our Legislature has not made any serious attempts at accountability for the numerous mistakes in our pandemic response.

We don’t have clarity on how personal-protective-equipment contracts were handled, how testing was procured or who drafted the deadly March 25 order and why.

We could be months away from another pandemic, and I assure you, we are no closer to being ready for the next one.

How scientific information is handled is at the heart of this inquiry.

If our leaders were found to have made decisions based on politics, not science, there must be consequences.

And that's really the answer to the question of why New York's most powerful politicians haven't lifted a finger to probe the disaster of New York's COVID nursing home deaths, isn't it? They don't want to face the consequences. By doing nothing, they're really doing what it takes to make sure they aren't ever held accountable.