Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governer, has been ordered by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) to return the earnings from the 2020 book about the Covid-19 pandemic that he authored, New York Times reported.
The latest order comes in the backdrop of sexual assault allegations against Cuomo in December 2020, that forced him to resign from his governorship this year. Lindsey Boylan, a former aide to Cuomo, called him out on Twitter for sexually harassing her for years.
Cuomo authored and published American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic in October 2020. According to Goodreads, in the book, “Governor Andrew Cuomo tells the riveting story of how he took charge in the fight against COVID-19 as New York became the epicenter of the pandemic, offering hard-won lessons in leadership and his vision for the path forward.”
According to the NYT report, the ethics board had earlier ruled that Cuomo had achieved authorization for the deal under false pretense, and thus by a 12-1 vote stripped him of his earnings from the book, on Tuesday. The committee further noted that the application of approval for the book deal required Cuomo to vow that “no state property, personnel or other resources may be utilized for activities associated with the book.” But he broke it after he, the committee stated, took help from people who worked under him during his tenure, with writing, editing, and publishing the text.
While Cuomo acknowledged that he sought help from his aides, he maintained that they wished to volunteer.
A report produced by investigators documented that “one top aide sent or received more than 300 emails about the memoir last year, while another sent or received more than 1,000 messages.”
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Cuomo’s lawyer, Jim McGuire, responded to the order and said that it was driven by political interests rather than the facts and the law, and hinted at a legal battle if the committee pushed the order.
Cuomo’s brother and ex-CNN primetime show host Chris Cuomo was also named for defending his brother, and was recently fired from CNN. Publishing company Harper Collins confirmed last week that they will not be publishing Chris Cuomo’s Deep Denial that was slated for release in 2022 through its Custom House line of curated non-fiction and fiction literature.