Judge: Cuomo Can Keep $5.1M From COVID Book Deal

The New York Times reports:

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will not have to turn over the proceeds of his $5.1 million book deal, after a judge ruled on Tuesday that a state ethics board had violated Mr. Cuomo’s due process in seeking the money.

The now-defunct Joint Commission on Public Ethics, known as JCOPE, had initially approved Mr. Cuomo’s book deal in 2020, but revoked it a few months after he left office, saying he had obtained the green light under false pretenses, improperly using state resources in writing the memoir, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the Covid-19 Pandemic.”

Aides to Mr. Cuomo said he followed his lawyers’ advice in allowing his aides to help him on the book, as long as they did it on their own time. A State Assembly inquiry, however, found that though some staffers appear to have taken vacation or personal time to work on the book project, time was also devoted to it “during the course of normal work routines.”

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