Legal experts warn that the alleged undercounting of nursing home deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York could rise to the level of a criminal offense.
Cuomo was at the center of a federal investigation into whether his government was trying to hide the pandemic’s true toll.
The New York Post reported earlier this month that Melissa DeRosa, Cuomo’s top assistant, had told lawmakers it withheld the numbers for fear they would be “ used against us. ”
FILE: Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks at a press conference against a backdrop of medical supplies at the Jacob Javits Center which will house a temporary hospital in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in New York.
(AP)
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, John B. Daukas, who served as acting U.S. Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, wrote that DeRosa had admitted that Cuomo’s government was “not only negligent, but willful. and maybe criminal. ”
Daukas said numerous federal statutes could apply, noting that Cuomo’s government accuses both of making false statements to the federal government and of trying to thwart an investigation.
“Even if it cannot be proven that the Cuomo administration knowingly provided false information to the Justice and the (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), New York’s willful failure to provide information may in itself be a criminal offense – especially if it was intended to be a federal investigation – which, after all, is exactly what Ms. DeRosa reportedly said the government was doing, ” Daukas wrote.
And on Saturday, Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said DeRosa’s admission to lawmakers – if true – is a potential impediment to legal charges. Under federal statute, Jarrett noted, if a government official falsifies or conceals evidence to prevent an investigation from being launched (or acting out of fear that such an investigation might take place), that official is still culpable under the law of obstruction. ”
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The nursing home scandal has dealt a hard blow to the governor’s great preference. Early in the pandemic, the governor went on television for daily briefings that were paternal, almost philosophical, and also sharply critical of the Trump administration. They became indispensable TV across the country, assisted in part by his brother from CNN news host.
Despite his state’s death toll – more than 46,000 people in New York State have died from COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University – Cuomo’s popularity soared. In October, Cuomo drove an early victory lap and released a book entitled “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
But the nursing home issue exploded onto the political scene with two recent revelations. First, the state’s Democratic Attorney General punished the Cuomo government for minimizing the death toll in nursing homes by excluding certain fatalities from the count. Cuomo’s government then revealed that at least 15,000 people living in long-term care facilities have died from COVID-19, nearly double the number Cuomo disclosed initially.
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“The story of nursing homes really raised a lot of questions about his leadership style and the success of his leadership during COVID,” said Christina Greer, professor of political science at Fordham University. “The governor has written a book praising his achievements, and we don’t know if we’re halfway through the pandemic.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report