Taxpayers on the hook for Executive Chamber legal costs in federal nursing home probe

ALBANY, NY (WRGB) — The bills are piling up for the legal costs in the multiple scandals facing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Taxpayers are going to be on the hook, so yes You Paid For It.

Thanks to the Freedom of Information law, I've just obtained the contract between Cuomo's Executive Chamber and the NYC law firm of Morvillo Abramowitz -- that's the firm defending the Chamber in the federal probe into the undercount of nursing home deaths.

First the bottom line. The contract, which will be paid for by you, is for $2.5 million. It stipulates that it could be less, or it could also be amended for a higher number. Letters we've obtained show that it has already been changed at least once -- originally it was $2.1 million.

Lead attorney Elkan Abramowitz will be paid at a discounted hourly rate of $937.50 an hour. His partners will be paid an hourly rate of $680.

For months and months we told you the Cuomo administration was not giving a true count of nursing home COVID deaths -- not counting nursing home patients who died in a hospital. Cuomo’s top aide admitted during a meeting with lawmakers earlier this year that they “froze” once they learned there was a federal investigation into the count.

At a news conference in NYC Wednesday Governor Cuomo confirmed that you the taxpayer will be paying his legal bill saying,

“The way it works is the Executive Chamber has retained a counsel and that is a state expense, it has been in every investigation, so that's where we are now.”

This contract is ten times the quarter million dollars the NYS Assembly is spending on outside counsel for its impeachment investigation into Governor Cuomo. That investigation is looking into not just nursing homes, but also the multiple sexual harassment allegations the Governor is facing.