Andrew Cuomo Netted $1.5M On COVID Book in 2020, Spokesman Says
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made $1.5 million in 2020 for his book on leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic that generated controversy.
The $1.5 million is only a portion of the profit the governor is expected to make for the book over the next two years, Cuomo's spokesman Richard Azzopardi said Monday. According to his publishing contract, the New York Democrat will net $5 million for the book.
Three million of the earnings are classified as Cuomo's advance payment and the other is $2 million in profits. In light of the news, critics are calling for Cuomo to release his full contract with the publisher for further insight into royalties and compensation if more copies of his book are sold.
Azzopardi said $500,000 of the proceeds were donated to the United Way of New York State.
The publication of Cuomo's book has come under criticism for being published in October while the number of New York's COVID-19 cases was rising. Additional criticism has involved members of his administration working on editing and publishing the book.
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
Until Monday, Cuomo had, for months, declined to say how much money he made from writing "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic."
The disclosure of his big payday was made on the day his mandatory financial disclosures were due to a state ethics agency.
The book was published in October by Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, just as the state was seeing a deadly resurgence in infections.
In April, the state's comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, authorized New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the role that some of Cuomo's aides played in "drafting, editing sale and promotion" of the book.
Azzopardi has repeatedly said that state employees who helped with the book did so on their own time in a "volunteer" capacity.
The Democrat has also been criticized by some over his administration's decision to withhold data on COVID-19 deaths among nursing home patients for several months during the period when the book was being finalized and sold.
Critics say the administration was purposely obscuring the true death toll to mute criticism that Cuomo hadn't done enough to protect nursing home residents. The governor and the state's health commissioner have said the numbers were withheld because the state had trouble verifying them.
The state's ethics commission approved Cuomo's request to write the book last summer, but only if he followed several conditions, including making sure it was written on his own time and not using state property, personnel or other resources for "activities associated with the book."
The governor was also barred from advertising, promoting or endorsing his book when performing his state duties.
