Cuomo Ordered To Cough Up $5M In COVID Book Earnings

NEW YORK CITY — Disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been ordered to surrender the $5.1 million he made on a book about his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Joint Commission on Public Ethics board members ordered Cuomo to surrender the proceeds from the book on Tuesday after they found the former governor violated state ethics laws.

They gave the State Attorney General’s Office the right to collect on the funds, the New York Times reported.

In a statement, Cuomo’s attorney said his client will fight the charges.

“JCOPE’s actions today are unconstitutional, exceed its own authority and appear to be driven by political interests rather than the facts and the law,” Jim McGuire, the former governor’s attorney said in a statement

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

Cuomo’s memoir — “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic" — netted Cuomo more than $5 million, a portion of which is already gone, The Times reported. The newspaper said that Cuomo had previously donated $500,000 to charity and that another $1 million had been placed in a trust for his daughters.

The book was once hotly anticipated, but it sold poorly as scandals swirled around Cuomo, including over his handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic. And the tome itself became controversial after investigators found government employees worked on the book.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, a longtime rival of Cuomo's, previously said the former governor should repay for any book work on the taxpayer's dime.

"If government resources were inappropriately used, yes, of course he should pay back anything that he used inappropriately," de Blasio said in November.

The state ethics board previously determined that Cuomo misrepresented parts of the book, including its subject.

Read the New York Times report here.