ALBANY — State Inspector General Letizia Tagliafierro, a longtime aide to former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, has resigned from her post as the executive branch's top internal-affairs watchdog, according to her office.
Her resignation was effective Friday, according to spokesman Lee Park. The inspector general's office is empowered to investigate wrongdoing by state employees across the vast network of state agencies under the governor's control.
The acting inspector general, until Hochul can make her own appointment, will be Chief Deputy Inspector General Robyn Adair.
Before joining the inspector general's office at the beginning of 2020, Adair had worked since 2015 in Cuomo's office. That included a nearly four-year stint as Cuomo's "special counsel for ethics, risk and compliance," helping run a program founded in 2015 by longtime Cuomo aide Linda Lacewell that served to suppress negative information about the governor.
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In 2013, Adair was special counsel to Cuomo's Moreland Commission on Utility Storm Preparation and Response, and has worked as an attorney at several state agencies, dating back to Republican Gov. George Pataki's administration.
Tagliafierro's departure comes less than a month after Cuomo's resignation and two weeks after a majority of the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics voted to ask state Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the conduct of the inspector general's office in its probe of an illegal leak of confidential information from JCOPE to Cuomo in January 2019.
Earlier this week, James rejected JCOPE's referral of that matter as well as the ethics panel's request to see the attorney general's office investigate the leak itself. James cited what she concluded was JCOPE's failure to follow rules that require gubernatorial appointees to approve investigations that involve the governor. On Tuesday, the commissioners voted again to approve the referral of the leak investigation — and mustered a sufficient number of gubernatorial appointees to support it — but failed to sustain the referral regarding the performance of Tagliafierro's office.
Although the alleged leak happened more than two and a half years ago, pressure has been building recently for an outside investigator to revisit the matter.
Former JCOPE Commissioner Julie Garcia, who first reported the leak, told a state Senate panel earlier this month that the inspector general's office was either "incompetent or corrupt" in its 2019 investigation of the apparent disclosure.
In July, the Times Union disclosed new details about Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie's interactions with Cuomo following the alleged leak. Heastie has acknowledged receiving a berating call from Cuomo shortly after a JCOPE meeting on Jan. 29, 2019. The governor was apparently irate about how Heastie's appointed commissioners had voted in a confidential proceeding that day on whether to investigate the possible misuse of government resources by a former top Cuomo aide, Joseph Percoco.
It's a misdemeanor to leak information about JCOPE's confidential deliberations.
Tagliafierro recused herself from the leak investigation, she said, because she had previously worked as a top staffer at JCOPE. The investigation was overseen by her deputy, Spencer Freedman, who earlier this year departed for a job with another former Cuomo confidant, SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras.
Nine months after the apparent leak, the inspector general's office issued a report to JCOPE that contended it could not confirm an illegal leak had occurred, in part because the allegations were based on hearsay.
Yet the investigation did not include interviews with key individuals embroiled in the allegations, including Cuomo and Heastie. Garcia, outraged by the lackluster investigation, resigned from JCOPE.
The inspector general's office argues it conducted a thorough probe, including requiring JCOPE staff and commissioners to sign sworn affirmations stating they did not illegally leak information from the 2019 meeting. The inspector general's office also subpoenaed some phone and text message records.
Tagliafierro took over as inspector general the same month the leak occurred, replacing Catherine Leahy Scott, who had served in the post for almost seven years.