Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo is making an attempt to slap a gag order on a intercourse accuser’s legal professionals to maintain them from persevering with to publicly focus on the $28 million in taxpayer funds paid out to defend him and others associated to his instances.
Cuomo is legally entitled to have the state pay for his protection prices linked to his time in workplace, his camp says — but accuser Charlotte Bennett’s authorized workforce has been mentioning the staggering, rising authorized tab to “prejudice” him with potential jurors and to attempt to pressure a settlement in her case.
“There isn’t a query that such statements are gratuitous and extremely prejudicial to Governor Cuomo [indeed, intentionally so],” Cuomo’s legal professionals,Theresa Trzaskoma and Rita Glavin, wrote in a Dec. 3 letter to Manhattan federal Decide Sarah Cave, looking for the gag order.
Cuomo’s authorized workforce is taking part in hardball because it prepares to grill Bennett in a two-day deposition Dec. 18 and 19 — a session anticipated to whole no less than 14 hours and embody questioning from different defendants’ legal professionals, court docket data present.
Different defendants embody former high Cuomo aides Melissa DeRosa, Judith Mogue and Judith DesRosiers, who’re accused of aiding and abetting Cuomo.
Bennett claims Cuomo “subjected her to sexualized feedback about her look, assigned her humiliating and demeaning duties, and starting in early June 2020, subjected her to invasive and undesirable questions on her private life, romantic and sexual relationships, and historical past as a survivor of sexual assault,” in keeping with her authentic grievance filed in September 2022.
She has referred to as Cuomo a “hazard” to girls.
However Cuomo’s authorized workforce is looking for to show the tables on Bennett, claiming she engaged in “impulsive and reckless private conduct” in and across the office and a “private meltdown” — and that removed from being a harasser, Cuomo was making an attempt to assist her.
Nonetheless, Cuomo’s aggressive protection comes at a steep value for state taxpayers.
Knowledge obtained by The Submit by way of a authorized request reveal that state prices tied to Cuomo’s authorized protection and responses to different investigations involving him and his administration has hit $28 million — and counting.
The state has spent $16.3 million in protection prices for Cuomo and his former government chamber officers. The dough consists of $8.2 million within the ongoing “State Trooper 1 v. Cuomo” case and $8.1 million within the ongoing “Charlotte Bennett v. Cuomo” case, in keeping with state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s workplace.
The state has spent one other $11.7 million for authorized illustration associated to the Cuomo sexual-harassment investigation, response to COVID-19 probes and his Meeting impeachment proceedings.
“We signify former Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and write to request that the Court docket enter
a protecting order prohibiting plaintiff’s counsel from making any additional extrajudicial statements
regarding protection prices on this matter,” Cuomo’s legal professionals wrote Cave within the current letter.
Cuomo’s reps complained about feedback made by the Bennett camp in a September article within the New York Occasions discussing the skyrocketing authorized prices involving him and an announcement made by Bennett lawyer Deborah Katz in a Nov. 21 press launch after a state decide refused abstract judgement in a separate harassment lawsuit that Bennett introduced in state court docket.
Katz “sought to poison any New York jury,” his legal professionals stated.
Bennett’s legal professionals have raised Cuomo’s hefty authorized tab to attempt to stress Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Legal professional Normal Letitia James to settle a separate case filed in state court docket, Trzaskoma and Rita Glavin stated.
Cuomo’s legal professionals additionally blamed Bennett for court docket delays which have jacked up prices.
Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi stated Sunday, “We’re outraged concerning the prices, too” — however blamed AG James’ “costly” preliminary investigation of the sexual harassment accusations towards Cuomo which might be “confirmed to be demonstrably false.
“Making an attempt to make use of protection prices as a technique to create public stress to pressure a settlement whatever the deserves is a cynical tactic that we’re merely not going to fall prey to,” the Cuomo rep stated.
Bennett’s legal professionals predictably instructed the decide they oppose the gag order.
“There isn’t a authorized help for Defendant Cuomo’s request for a protecting order to gag Ms. Bennett’s counsel, and Ms. Bennett respectfully requests that the Court docket deny his letter movement,” stated the plaintiff’s legal professionals, Katz and Herbert Eisenberg, of their Dec. 6 response letter to Decide Cave.
Bennett’s legal professionals stated Cuomo’s “extraordinary” proposed gag order was a part of his “scorched earth protection” they slammed as “absurd”, a violation of their free speech rights, a “pretext to smear Ms. Bennett and an try and deflect from his harassment.
Discussing these prices “can not moderately be stated to affect public perspective on defendants’ legal responsibility for sexual harassment and retaliation,” Katz and Eisenberg stated.
It was James’ investigative report substantiating sexual misconduct claims made by a bevy of girls towards Cuomo — together with Bennett — that led to his resignation in August, 2021 below the specter of impeachment — although he continues to disclaim the accusations.
Cuomo’s legal professionals stated they’re digging to show his innocence.
“Not a single one among Ms. Bennett’s allegations will face up to the mountains of contemporaneous video and textual content message proof that we now have however that have been by no means turned over to OAG [the state Office of Attorney General],” Glavin and Trzaskoma wrote.
“Governor Cuomo has no real interest in settling this lawsuit. He by no means sexually harassed Ms. Bennett and he has the proper to show his innocence.”
Supply hyperlink
