ALBANY, N.Y. — A judge sided with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday in his dispute with a now-defunct state ethics commission that ordered him to give up $5 million he was paid to write a book about his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Joint Commission on Public Ethics initially approved Cuomo’s request to write the book, titled “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” in 2020. But the panel withdrew that approval the following year after alleging Cuomo hadn’t kept a promise not to use any state resources on the book.
Cuomo acknowledged that state employees helped with tasks including editing the manuscript.