ALBANIA – The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn have launched an investigation that at least partially investigates the actions of government equipment Andrew M. Cuomo’s coronavirus task force in dealing with nursing homes and other long-term care facilities during the pandemic. Times Union learned.
The person investigating the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York’s Eastern District is apparently at an early stage and focusing on the work of some of the senior members of the governor’s task force, according to a person with direct knowledge of the case. not authorized to comment in public.
When the virus began spreading in New York in March last year, Cuomo released a news release naming the 13 initial members of his coronavirus task force, led by Linda Lacewell, a lawyer and former Cuomo chief of staff. Lacewell is the supervisor of the State Department of Financial Services. Other members of the task force include Howard Zucker, State Health Commissioner, Secretary of State Melissa DeRosa, and Beth Garvey, Councilor.
“As we have said in public, the DOJ (Department of Justice) has been investigating this for months,” said Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for the governor. “We have worked with them and will continue to do so.”
Azzopardi did not disclose whether interviews had been conducted with members of the administration and whether any summonses had been served on them.
John Marzulli, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, said Wednesday afternoon he could not “confirm or deny” whether the office had launched an investigation.
Nearly three weeks after the governor’s task force was announced last year, the state health department issued an order ordering nursing homes and other long-term care institutions to accept residents who are discharged from hospitals, even if they are still positive about the infectious diseases, as long as they could take proper care.
This directive, which was repealed less than two months later, was the focus of criticism of the Cuomo government, including allegations that the order – according to the governor based on federal guidance – contributed to the large number of deaths. of residents of nursing homes in New York. This allegation was largely rejected in a report by the Department of Health released in July.
Last month, Attorney General Letitia James’ office issued a serious report concluding that the practice could increase the risk of COVID-19 infections at community facilities, and that Cuomo’s government has slowed to reports that thousands of additional nursing homes in hospitals have died after becoming infected in their residential facilities.
It is unclear whether the federal investigation by the office of the acting U.S. attorney, Seth D. DuCharme, is related to two letters that Cuomo’s government received last year from an attorney for the Civil Division at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. received to obtain information on the state’s nursing home policy. and data.
The controversy boiled over again last week when DeRosa told the group in a closed-door meeting with key Democrats in the state’s legislature with the government to sue and investigate the governor’s administration. has about nursing homes, withheld. months due to the investigation of the Department of Justice.
DeRosa, in the private meeting about which a subsequent leak took place, identified the Justice Department official who sent the letter, Jeffrey Clark, an attorney who headed the department’s civil division, as a ‘political heel’ which she said followed the investigation. at the urging of President Donald J. Trump.
‘Actually we froze, because then we were in a position where we were not sure whether what we would give to the Department of Justice or what we would give to you and what we started saying would be used against us and we was not sure if there would be an investigation, ‘DeRosa told Democratic lawmakers.
In a formal statement a day after her remarks were leaked, DeRosa said the government had fully cooperated with the Department of Justice.
The recent investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn is not the first time that federal prosecutors in New York have launched an investigation in New York’s North District, which stretches from Kingston to the Canadian border with headquarters in Albany and Syracuse. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan has prosecuted a major fraud and bribery case over Cuomo assistants in Albany. the prosecution of NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere and other top members of his organization was handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, issued a statement on Wednesday urging President Joe Biden to allow Antoinette Bacon, the acting U.S. Attorney in New York’s Northern District, to investigate the Cuomo government in connection with the reporting on deaths in nursing homes.
Grassley noted that the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, New York, Audrey Strauss, is DeRosa’s mother-in-law and should not be involved in any investigation.
Bacon, who was appointed acting U.S. attorney in Albany in September, is among dozens of U.S. attorneys who could be removed from office by the Biden administration. Bacon was recently the national coordinator for parental justice of the Department of Justice and was the national coordinator of white-collar crime at the executive office for U.S. attorneys.
She is a highly decorated prosecutor and, according to her professional biography, has received special awards from the IRS, the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Justice for her prosecutions of fraud, waste, abuse and corruption.
But the investigation being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn does not appear to involve the Northern District.
Earlier this week, Cuomo stopped apologizing for his administration’s handling of the death toll from nursing homes, and repeatedly noted that they had created a ‘gap’ by not providing the information requested by state lawmakers.
“Apologize? Look, I said repeatedly, we made a mistake to create the void,” he said. “When we did not provide information, the press, people, cynics, politicians could fill the void. If you do not correct this information, please allow it to continue, and we created the void.”
Republicans at all levels of New York’s government spectrum, as well as many Democrats, have repeatedly called for independent investigations into the state’s nursing home policies and regulations during the ongoing pandemic. Some of the critics also questioned whether there were links between policy decisions and hospitals or other special interests that had matters before the state or were subject to their government agencies.
Previous cover for old age homes
State lawmakers have also insisted on the use of legislative summonses to force responses from key officials, including Zucker.
Legislators attending the briefing with DeRosa included House Speaker John McDonald D-Cohoes, chairman of the House Monitoring, Analysis and Inquiry Committee, and Senator James Skoufis, an Orange County Democrat. , who chairs the Senate Committee of Inquiry and Government. Skoufis and the chairman of the aging committee, Rachel May, who were both in the meeting, faced calls from Republicans that Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the leader of the Senate majority, should be stripped for failing to pass their legislative colleagues warned about what was said.
Skoufis has already come under fire from Republican lawmakers for not immediately issuing subpoenas for the information they requested from the health commissioner last year. Skoufis said he would use the power if necessary, but the case would be decided after Zucker appeared before the Legislative Joint Budget Hearing Panel.
In a statement following the meeting with DeRosa last week, Skoufis did not mention her comments on the government’s decision to withhold the information in light of the Justice Department’s investigation. He said it was “unacceptable that it took so long.”
“To be clear, we will definitely have more questions if we review this information,” Skoufis said of the data passed to state lawmakers last week. ‘While some of our Republican colleagues in the legislature continue to play politics with the tragedy that has unfolded in our state’s nursing homes, we are instead committed to finding answers, holding stakeholders accountable, and legislating solutions to a sober, considerate way to promote. . “
Cuomo said this week he did not believe his administration’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic or the delay in reporting the number of deaths should be investigated.
‘The State of New York (Department of Health) has always fully and publicly reported all COVID deaths in nursing homes and hospitals. They have always been fully reported, “Cuomo said on Monday. “I do not think there is anything to clarify here. … There is nothing to investigate. ”