Following a report, Andrew Cuomo is denying that his staffers were hard at work on his COVID-19 memoir while over 1,000 New Yorkers died per day to the virus.
Cuomo has been slammed for taking a $5.1 million deal for his book American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic, despite authorizing nursing homes to accept thousands of COVID-19 patients, many of whom later died. A new report claims that the ex-governor had his staffers working on the controversial memoir between March and April 2020 while his administration scrambled to address surging virus-related deaths, but Cuomo’s camp was quick to deny the report.
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“What is being alleged here is reckless and false,” Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi told the Empire Center for Public Policy, a government watchdog group that obtained emails between Cuomo staffers and alleges they relate to his book.
“The emails have NOTHING to do with work on the book, which began months later,” he said. “The timeline was to inform the daily briefings, speeches and other COVID-related materials. Of course a speechwriter would produce language in the Governor’s voice.”
Cuomo resigned in August 2021 in the wake of sexual harassment allegations, which he has said are baseless. He is set to receive a taxpayer-funded defense in connection to a harassment lawsuit brought by a state trooper, who alleges that the ex-governor kissed her, made suggestive comments, and “placed the palm of his hand on her belly button and slid it across her waist to her right hip.”
Republican lawmakers have said they intend to hold Cuomo accountable for New York’s nursing home deaths, which a report in February 2021 linked to the then-governor’s ordinance requiring the homes to accept COVID-19-positive patients. The Empire Center for Public Policy published the Cuomo emails on Friday and claimed they show how his administration was allocating resources toward preparing his book, which was published in October 2021.
One email thread on March 30 shows that then-Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa directed staffers to produce a timeline of Cuomo pandemic-related orders and actions, which the watchdog says were for his book.
“Who can do a timeline for me? call me to discuss,” she wrote on March 30 to staffers, emails show.
Hours later, Victoria Raneses, an administrative assistant, forwarded an 8,200-word summary containing links to Cuomo’s media interviews, press briefings, and actions related to the pandemic.
“Please let us know what you would like us to add tomorrow,” said Raneses, who copied then-Cuomo speechwriters Jamie Malanowski and Thomas Topousis on the email chain. “Thank you!”
DeRosa responded on April 2 on the thread: “Have u guys had a chance to dig through this? I’ll have time tomorrow to do a brain dump,” referring to the speechwriters.
“I looked through the material,” replied Topousis. “I’ve been working to organize it a bit as something of a daily diary. I’m happy to talk tomorrow.”
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“Yes, I am available as well,” wrote Malanowski.
The emails, along with others, did not specifically mention a book.
However, on April 18, 2020, Malanowski told DeRosa there was “a preface [he’d] been working on.” The preface was written in the first person and allegedly in the voice of Cuomo, according to the watchdog.
While the since-disbanded Joint Commission on Public Ethics in New York ordered Cuomo to surrender his book cash to the state, an Albany court in August ruled that he could keep the proceeds.
“Any article that states that Melissa DeRosa directed anyone to work on Gov. Cuomo’s book in March and/or April 2020 is false and reckless,” Gregory Morvillo, a lawyer for DeRosa, told the New York Post.
