Despite $5M book deal, Gov. Cuomo making taxpayers foot $2.5M legal defense tab

Taxpayers are being forced to shell out more than $900 an hour for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s lead defense lawyer, to help him try and fend off multiple allegations of sexual harassment, charges that he used staffers to help write a book detailing his handling of the pandemic and claims that he and aides hid from the public the true death toll among patients of nursing homes.

The three-term Democrat is also holding a $10,000-a-head fundraiser later this month amid an ongoing impeachment probe by the state Assembly’s Judiciary Committee. But Cuomo — who leads the nation’s governors with a $225,000 annual salary — defended his decision to stick hard-working and heavily taxed New Yorkers with his legal bills. "The state — the way it works is the Executive Chamber has retained the counsel and that is a state expense," he said during a news conference at Manhattan’s Javits Center.