Why Taxpayers Are Funding Cuomo’s Legal Bills

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. We’ll find out who’s paying for the lawyers defending former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in sexual harassment lawsuits. We’ll also get details on calls for Mayor Eric Adams to resign amid federal investigations that have shaken his administration.

Andrew Cuomo resigned as governor in 2021 amid allegations of sexual harassment that he vehemently denied. Since then, the state has spent more than $25 million on his lawyers. More than half the money has gone toward defending Cuomo and several top aides in four lawsuits filed by three women, and the lawyers have fought hard. I asked my colleague Benjamin Oreskes to discuss Cuomo’s aggressive defense.

Let’s answer a “why” question first. Why are the taxpayers of New York State paying a former governor’s legal bills?

Because of a state law — officially, Public Officers Law 17, which states that New York will “provide for the defense” in a case involving “any alleged act” that occurred “while the employee was acting within the scope of his public employment or duties.”

Cuomo and his aides were in office when the allegations laid out in these lawsuits occurred, so the state is covering their defense.

Attorneys not involved with the Cuomo cases told me that the law was meant to prevent government employees at any level, from high-ranking aides in the Executive Chamber to rank-and-file workers, from being bankrupted if they’re sued for something that happens while they’re on the job.

Is this like giving Cuomo’s lawyers a blank check?

In the eyes of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, yes. They contend that the state’s funding of Cuomo’s legal defense has allowed his team to be overzealous and intrusive in the issuing of subpoenas.

Cuomo’s people say simply he’s trying to defend himself and clear his name.

He has used private lawyers rather than lawyers from Attorney General Letitia James’s office, because that office investigated some of these allegations. It would have been a conflict for anyone on James’s staff to represent him.

There have been efforts to stymie this type of spending. James initially tried to block payments for Cuomo’s legal fees. She argued that allegations of sexual harassment don’t fall within the remit of state work. But when Cuomo took James to court on that point, the judge ruled the state had to pay.

What does Cuomo hope to gain from such an aggressive defense?

Cuomo has said over and over that he feels wronged by many of the accusations against him. He thinks the report that outside law firms produced for James, which found that he had sexually harassed at least 11 women, was “biased, flawed, and misleading.”

That’s certainly part of it. You also get a sense that Cuomo’s defense is a reflection of the pugilistic style that’s characterized his entire political career.

Is he looking to run for mayor of New York City next year?

I was in Washington last week covering his testimony before the Republican-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. After the hearing, I asked. He said: “I have no plans to run for anything.”

But he did appear to relish being at the center of a scrum and being asked about his own ambitions and the turmoil in Mayor Eric Adams’s administration.

Before he appeared at that hearing, the subcommittee had already interviewed him and many of his top aides. The committee had also released a report criticizing how officials had tried to shift the blame for deaths in nursing homes during the pandemic. Is New York State paying Cuomo’s legal team to defend him before the subcommittee?

The answer is probably no. Jennifer Freeman, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s communications director, told me that the law applies only to proceedings in state and federal court.

Why hasn’t the state ordered Cuomo to settle the cases in which it’s paying his lawyers?

The state couldn’t force him to.

The state is actually a defendant in some of them. Hypothetically, the state’s lawyers could offer the women settlements and insist that the plaintiffs drop their claims against all of the defendants. That would include Cuomo and his aides.

Lawyers for two of the women suing Cuomo — Charlotte Bennett and Brittany Commisso — told me that these cases could be settled for a fraction of the cost the state has incurred.

When I asked people in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office about that, they told me the state had been waiting to discuss settlements until after the statute of limitations expired on the types of claims the plaintiffs had made, in case other accusers came forward. The statute of limitations ran out last month, and a spokesman for Hochul told me the state is “now in a position to evaluate those claims.”

Has Cuomo’s pushback paid off?

Cuomo’s lawyers have fought vociferously, and sometimes successfully, to throw out portions of the lawsuits against him. Because all these fights involve what is called discovery — an early step on the road to a trial that involves what documents or other forms of evidence should be made available to the other side — the cases are far from trial, and the bill being sent to the taxpayers will only tick higher.

Is there any thought of changing the rules so former officials would have to pay their lawyers with their own money?

Everyone I spoke to — inside and outside state government — agreed that there needs to be a law to ensure that public officials don’t get left holding the bag when they’re pulled into court. Michael Gianaris, the deputy majority leader in the State Senate, told me that he would look for a legislative fix that would provide more oversight of the process.

Weather

Expect cloudy skies with temperatures in the high 70s. At night, expect a chance of showers with temperatures in the high 60s.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect until Oct. 3 (Rosh Hashana).

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Pressure builds on Adams

With federal investigations swirling around Mayor Eric Adams, and his administration appearing to be in free fall, the city could learn in the coming days whether more officials will leave, as his chief legal adviser did over the weekend — or will be asked to leave, as the police commissioner was before his departure last week.

On Monday Tiffany Cabán, a progressive councilwoman from Queens, became the first City Council member to urge the mayor to step down. She joined Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher and Senator Julia Salazar, who on Friday became the first two state lawmakers to call for Adams’s resignation.

Adams skipped a Democratic fund-raising breakfast in support of Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee; congressional candidates; and state lawmakers who are on the November ballot. At City Hall, he tried to shift the attention to his stewardship of government, calling a news conference to discuss the mayor’s management report, a metrics-driven assessment of city agencies.

But even as he highlighted a decrease in felony crimes and efforts to seize illegal mopeds and scooters, he was asked about the calls to resign. “I was elected by the people of the city,” he said, noting that more than 700,000 people voted for him in the 2021 election, “and I’m going to fulfill my obligation to the people of this city.”

METROPOLITAN diary

Times Square Shuttle

Dear Diary:

My 11-year-old daughter and I were taking the shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square on our way to meet other family members for a Mother’s Day picnic in Central Park.

I had been teaching her how to get around Manhattan, where I grew up, and as we sat across from each other, she looked up and asked if the shuttle made just one stop. A booming voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Yes, it is just one stop,” the voice said.

My daughter jumped up, and both of us, startled, looked around at the other passengers. They all seemed oblivious.

“Mama, that scared me!” my daughter said.

“Don’t be scared,” the voice boomed again.

I realized we were sitting next to the conductor’s booth and pointed it out to my daughter.

“Have a nice day!” she said to the conductor as we got off at Times Square.

“You have a nice day too, young lady!” the conductor said for the whole train to hear.

— Ariane Maclean Trimuschat

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here, and read more Metropolitan Diary here.

Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.

Hannah Fidelman, Steven Moity and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].