Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will not have to pay back the $5 million that he earned for writing a book about leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, a New York judge ruled Tuesday.
Cuomo, who received glowing media coverage at the outset of the pandemic but later faced criticism over his handling of nursing home COVID-19 deaths, wrote the book in 2020, titled "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic."
The now-defunct Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) approved Cuomo's request to write the book in 2020, but withdrew that approval last year and accused the former governor of using state resources to write the memoir.
A law firm that was hired by JCOPE to investigate the book deal said in a report last month that it agreed "with the conclusion in the JCOPE Notice that Governor Cuomo ‘misused the power and authority of his office to create, market and promote’" the memoir.
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Cuomo accused JCOPE of being biased against him and asserted that any work done on the book's manuscript by his staff was completed on their own time.
The law firm's report also faulted JCOPE for failing "to assert itself as a watchdog agency against the Governor."
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who took over for Cuomo after he resigned last August amid sexual misconduct allegations, disbanded the JCOPE and replaced it with a new ethics commission earlier this year.
"If, upon a review of JCOPE’s actions, the new commission decides to pursue action against Cuomo, proceeds with the adjudicatory hearing, and determines that a violation has occurred, the new Commission may then impose a civil penalty against him," Judge Denise A. Hartman wrote Tuesday.
An attorney for Cuomo did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
