Andrew Cuomo must return $5.1m in book proceeds, state ethics committee rules

Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo will have 30 days to return proceeds from his book about his administration’s response to Covid-19 following a state ethics committee vote.

A motion on 14 December from the Joint Commission on Public Ethics orders Mr Cuomo to pay “an amount equal to the compensation paid to him for his outside activities related to the book.”

He has yet to receive the full $5.1m as part of a contract with his publisher, according to income tax returns. Mr Cuomo placed $1m from book sales into a blind trust for his daughters, and he donated $500,000 to the United Way. He had been paid a net profit of $1.5m for the book, and paid $1.4m in taxes, according to filings from earlier this year. The status of $2m from the deal is unclear.

In a statement, his attorney Jim McGuire accused the committee of “unconstitutional” actions that “exceed its own authority and appear to be driven by political interests rather than the facts and the law”.

“Should they seek to enforce this action, we’ll see them in court,” he said.

The former governor is under a separate state attorney general investigation about the use of government resources to write American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic, which was published late last year.

Mr Cuomo resigned from his third term in office in August following widespread allegations of sexual harassment and abuse and the likelihood of a weeks-long impeachment investigation as lawmakers and law enforcement probed both abuse allegations and his handling of the public health crisis and its impact in nursing homes.

Last month, the ethics committee voted to rescind its approval for the book, arguing that the committee allowed the project only under an agreement that no government staff would be used to help draft or edit the book.

A report from the state Assembly’s Judiciary Committee determined that Mr Cuomo used government resources and staff to help with the book, though the former governor has argued that such help was done on a volunteer basis.

“Our investigation evidences that the book was the product of significant work performed by executive chamber staff during a time of a global pandemic requiring an around-the-clock response,” according to the report.

Mr Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing in both the book’s writing and abuse allegations. A separate criminal case involving accusations from a former aide is underway.