That’s how much New York State taxpayers spent reimbursing former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo for legal fees tied to his criminal defense of a sexual harassment misdemeanor charge levied by the Albany County District Attorney’s Office.
A former executive assistant to Cuomo filed a criminal complaint against her old boss in August of 2021.
Five months later, in January of 2022, Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares dropped the misdemeanor charge against former Governor Cuomo.
"While we found the complainant in this case cooperative and credible, after review of all the available evidence we have concluded that we cannot meet our burden at trial,” said Soares at the time.
Politicians who are convicted of crimes are responsible on their own to pay for legal fees.
But under New York State law, elected officials are reimbursed for all legal fees if they are accused of crimes but not convicted.
Since the former Governor used his political campaign committee “Friends of Andrew Cuomo” to pay $565,000 in legal fees (perfectly legal under New York State law), the New York State Comptroller by law cut Cuomo’s political campaign a reimbursement check for that amount.
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Senator Gianaris sponsored state senate bill S150, which “Prohibits state reimbursement of campaign and political committees, legal defense fund for payments made on behalf of the criminal defense of a state employee,” according to his proposed legislation.
The bill is currently before the New York State Senate Ethics And Internal Governance Committee.
Gianaris first proposed this law on January 4th, 2023 and passed the State Senate on May 15th, 2023. That day it was delivered to the State Assembly for passage but was never passed by that body.
This does not appear to be the last taxpayer funded reimbursements to Cuomo for legal fees. The South Shore Press reviewed the public campaign disclosures from the New York State Board of Elections, which show an approximately $300,000 payment to the law firm Holwell Shuster & Goldberg, LLP on September 12th, 2023. This could very well be another reimbursement paid to Cuomo’s campaign committee from the Office of the New York State Comptroller.
Cuomo’s legal team is just getting fired up.
The former Governor sued current New York State Attorney General Letita James on January 8th, 2024, in New York State Supreme Court. Cuomo wants more access and witness statements related to a James report released on August 3rd, 2021 detailing sexual harassment claims against Cuomo.
According to Cuomo’s lawsuit, filed with the office of New York County Clerk, Attorney General James promised to release specific details and witness statements, but refuses to do so,
“The public has both a right and interest in knowing the work of Respondents and Respondents’ full basis in making the significant and impactful decisions in issuing the consequential Report and causing the resignation of their democratically elected governor…The Report was a one-sided, deeply flawed ambush of Governor Cuomo, who denies having sexually harassed anyone,” Cuomo wrote in his lawsuit against James.