Cuomo can keep $5M payment for pandemic book after latest court win
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has won another round in a court battle with state ethics panels over the $5 million he was paid for his 2020 book about his handling of the COVID pandemic as it swept through New York.
A appeals court sided with Cuomo and a lower-court judge on Thursday by declaring unconstitutional an 11-member body known as the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government. That appointed panel had launched an investigation into Cuomo's book payment in 2022, shortly after its formation and Cuomo's resignation in the wake of sexual harassment complaints.
The ruling allows Cuomo to keep his book proceeds, which a previous ethics panel had ordered him to relinquish to the state. And it leaves in limbo a watchdog agency that two courts have now repudiated for improperly wielding authority that belongs to the state's executive branch.
Allowing it to investigate and penalize ethics violations "usurps the Governor's power to ensure the faithful execution of the applicable ethics laws," the four Appellate Division judges in Albany wrote in their unanimous decision on Thursday.
A Cuomo spokesman cheered the decision and potential end of a controversy he cast as vengeance by the former governor's political foes.
“This has been a three-year exercise to bend the law to fit the political will of those in charge," spokesman Rich Azzopardi said in a statement. "And hopefully after this second — and unanimous — court decision, this partisan and baseless prosecution will finally end.”
New questions: Cuomo's COVID book effort may have flouted NY ethics rules, state law. Here's how.
How will NY respond to court ruling?
The ethics panel's leaders vowed to appeal to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, and said they may seek "interim legislation" if needed for the panel to continue operating. The Appellate Division had issued an order when it took up the case that allowed the panel to function while the court reviewed the finding that it was unconstitutional.
"The Commission will continue to promote compliance with the state’s ethics and lobbying laws as this matter works its way through the full appellate process," read the statement from Frederick Davie, the commission's chairman, and Sanford Berland, its executive director.
How did this court battle between Cuomo and NY start?
The saga began in 2020 when Cuomo asked permission from the prior ethics panel — the Joint Commission on Public Ethics — to write a memoir about how he handled the pandemic. He raced to tell that tale after just a few months in the national limelight as leader of the first U.S. state hit hard by the deadly coronavirus.
The panel's attorney approved Cuomo's request with conditions, finding no potential ethical pitfalls as long as the governor used no state employees or resources to write or promote the book.
Court victory: Cuomo wins lawsuit against now-defunct JCOPE, won't have to pay back $5.1M from book deal
But the panel rescinded its approval in November 2021 — three months after Cuomo's resignation — based on reports that he may have violated those conditions. And the following month, it ordered him to turn over to the state the $5 million his publisher paid him for "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic."
Cuomo sued the panel and won in 2022. But by then, the state had disbanded the 11-year-old panel and replaced it with the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, which promptly decided to continue probing Cuomo's book deal. Cuomo then sued the new panel in 2023.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Andrew Cuomo wins court battle over $5M COVID book deal
