(Bloomberg) -- New York state's ethics commission voted Tuesday to require former Governor Andrew Cuomo to repay the more than $5 million in compensation he received for a book he wrote in 2020 on his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Joint Commission on Public Ethics voted 11-2 on a resolution requiring Cuomo to repay, within 30 days, all the compensation he earned from sales of his 2020 book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Cuomo, who resigned in August over sexual-harassment allegations, has been criticized for using public resources, including state workers, to write the book. The lucrative book contract increased Cuomo's net income more than fivefold to $1.5 million in 2020, from just over $280,000 in 2019, according to tax documents.
The resolution said such repayment was necessary because Cuomo isn't “legally entitled to retain compensation” he received from the book's publication, because he “lacked legal authority to engage in outside activity.” The panel voted last month to revoke the approval it had granted Cuomo for the book's publication, arguing he'd violated the conditions of that approval, which included requirements that he write the book on his own personal time, without using state resources.
Cuomo's attorney Jim McGuire called the decision “unconstitutional” and said the ethic board's actions “appear to be driven by political interests rather than the facts and the law,” McGuire said in a statement. “Should they seek to enforce this action, we'll see them in court.”
Read More: Cuomo to Get $5 Million Payment From Pandemic Leadership Book
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