{"id":550147,"date":"2021-06-02T18:27:35","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T22:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=550147"},"modified":"2021-06-02T18:50:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T22:50:11","slug":"ny-taxpayers-on-hook-for-2-5m-to-cover-gov-cuomos-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ny-taxpayers-on-hook-for-2-5m-to-cover-gov-cuomos-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"NY Taxpayers on Hook for $2.5M to Cover Gov. Cuomo&#039;s Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fny-taxpayers-on-hook-for-2-5m-to-cover-gov-cuomos-defense%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=550147&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GetFile-111.aspx\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>Taxpayers are set to foot the bill for a $2.5 million contract for lawyers representing Gov. Andrew Cuomo&#8217;s office in an ongoing federal investigation over his administration&#8217;s handling of COVID-19 data in nursing homes, the governor said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Legal bills are mounting as Cuomo and his administration fight back allegations he abused his power by sexually harassing and assaulting female employees and other women, publishing his COVID-19 leadership book in violation of state ethics laws, providing priority COVID-19 tests to his family in spring 2020 and minimizing the state&#8217;s tally of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Justice and state Attorney General&#8217;s office have launched probes of such allegations, while the state Assembly judiciary committee&#8217;s separate investigation is also considering whether there are grounds to impeach Cuomo.<\/p>\n<p>When asked Wednesday if he is using campaign or personal funds to pay for any lawyers, Cuomo said: &#8220;Not at this time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The way it works is the executive chamber has retained a counsel,&#8221; Cuomo said at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. &#8220;And that is a state expense. It has been in every investigation. So that&#8217;s where we are now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It is unknown how much taxpayers will end up paying in all for legal costs stemming from wide-ranging allegations against Cuomo.<\/p>\n<p>The governor&#8217;s office has not respond to a request from The Associated Press last week for a list of all outside lawyers currently representing Cuomo and his office.<\/p>\n<p>Any contracts for lawyers paid for by the state would need to get reviewed by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.<\/p>\n<p>DiNapoli&#8217;s office has received and approved one contract for lawyers so far: a $2.5 million contract with the Manhattan firm of Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason &#038; Anello. Partner Elkan Abramowitz is set to receive an hourly rate of $937.50, compared with $680 per hour for four other partners named in the contract.<\/p>\n<p>Former federal prosecutor Rita Glavin is representing Cuomo himself on sexual harassment allegations. Cuomo&#8217;s office did not provide details on compensation for Glavin and additional lawyers representing the Executive Chamber in state-level probes.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers from Morvillo Abramowitz are representing the Executive Chamber in the Department of Justice&#8217;s probe, which is investigating New York&#8217;s handling of nursing home data and the publication of Cuomo&#8217;s COVID-19 book. The contract says that probe also includes &#8220;other pandemic related matters.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi has said the administration &#8220;was absolutely going above and beyond to get people testing&#8221; in the early days of the pandemic. And top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa has defended former aide Larry Schwartz over criticism Schwartz, who oversaw the state&#8217;s vaccination roll-out, called up county executives to support Cuomo.<\/p>\n<p>Cuomo has denied he inappropriately touched or intended to make anyone uncomfortable, while apologizing for comments &#8220;misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation.&#8221; He has claimed staffers volunteered to help with his COVID-19 book, and said state health officials withheld nursing home COVID-19 data for months in order to verify it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taxpayers are set to foot the bill for a $2.5 million contract for lawyers representing Gov. Andrew Cuomo&#8217;s office in an ongoing federal investigation over his administration&#8217;s handling of COVID-19 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2278993,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GetFile-111.aspx","fifu_image_alt":"NY Taxpayers on Hook for $2.5M to Cover Gov. Cuomo&#039;s Defense","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-550147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GetFile-111.aspx","fifu_image_alt":"NY Taxpayers on Hook for $2.5M to Cover Gov. Cuomo&#039;s Defense","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2278993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}