Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo is trying to slap a gag order on a sex accuser’s lawyers to keep them from continuing to publicly discuss the $28 million in taxpayer funds paid out to defend him and others related to his cases.
Cuomo is legally entitled to have the state pay for his defense costs connected to his time in office, his camp says — yet accuser Charlotte Bennett’s legal team has been bringing up the staggering, growing legal tab to “prejudice” him with potential jurors and to try to force a settlement in her case.
“There is no question that such statements are gratuitous and highly prejudicial to Governor Cuomo [indeed, intentionally so],” Cuomo’s lawyers,Theresa Trzaskoma and Rita Glavin, wrote in a Dec. 3 letter to Manhattan federal Judge Sarah Cave, seeking the gag order.
Cuomo’s legal team is playing hardball as it prepares to grill Bennett in a two-day deposition Dec. 18 and 19 — a session expected to total at least 14 hours and include questioning from other defendants’ lawyers, court records show.
Other defendants include former top Cuomo aides Melissa DeRosa, Judith Mogue and Judith DesRosiers, who are accused of aiding and abetting Cuomo.
Bennett claims Cuomo “subjected her to sexualized comments about her appearance, assigned her humiliating and demeaning tasks, and beginning in early June 2020, subjected her to invasive and unwanted questions about her personal life, romantic and sexual relationships, and history as a survivor of sexual assault,” according to her original complaint filed in September 2022.
She has called Cuomo a “danger” to women.
But Cuomo’s legal team is seeking to turn the tables on Bennett, claiming she engaged in “impulsive and reckless personal conduct” in and around the workplace and a “personal meltdown” — and that far from being a harasser, Cuomo was trying to help her.
Still, Cuomo’s aggressive defense comes at a steep price for state taxpayers.
Data obtained by The Post through a legal request reveal that state costs tied to Cuomo’s legal defense and responses to other investigations involving him and his administration has hit $28 million — and counting.
The state has spent $16.3 million in defense costs for Cuomo and his former executive chamber officials. The dough includes $8.2 million in the ongoing “State Trooper 1 v. Cuomo” case and $8.1 million in the ongoing “Charlotte Bennett v. Cuomo” case, according to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office.
The state has spent another $11.7 million for legal representation related to the Cuomo sexual-harassment investigation, response to COVID-19 probes and his Assembly impeachment proceedings.
“We represent former Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and write to request that the Court enter
a protective order prohibiting plaintiff’s counsel from making any further extrajudicial statements
concerning defense costs in this matter,” Cuomo’s lawyers wrote Cave in the recent letter.
Cuomo’s reps complained about comments made by the Bennett camp in a September article in the New York Times discussing the skyrocketing legal costs involving him and a statement made by Bennett lawyer Deborah Katz in a Nov. 21 press release after a state judge refused summary judgement in a separate harassment lawsuit that Bennett brought in state court.
Katz “sought to poison any New York jury,” his lawyers said.
Bennett’s lawyers have raised Cuomo’s hefty legal tab to try to pressure Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Attorney General Letitia James to settle a separate case filed in state court, Trzaskoma and Rita Glavin said.
Cuomo’s lawyers also blamed Bennett for court delays that have jacked up costs.
Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said Sunday, “We’re outraged about the costs, too” — but blamed AG James’ “expensive” initial investigation of the sexual harassment accusations against Cuomo that are “proven to be demonstrably false.
“Trying to use defense costs as a way to create public pressure to force a settlement regardless of the merits is a cynical tactic that we’re simply not going to fall prey to,” the Cuomo rep said.
Bennett’s lawyers predictably told the judge they oppose the gag order.
“There is no legal support for Defendant Cuomo’s request for a protective order to gag Ms. Bennett’s counsel, and Ms. Bennett respectfully requests that the Court deny his letter motion,” said the plaintiff’s lawyers, Katz and Herbert Eisenberg, in their Dec. 6 response letter to Judge Cave.
Bennett’s lawyers said Cuomo’s “extraordinary” proposed gag order was part of his “scorched earth defense” they slammed as “absurd”, a violation of their free speech rights, a “pretext to smear Ms. Bennett and an attempt to deflect from his harassment.
Discussing these costs “cannot reasonably be said to influence public perspective on defendants’ liability for sexual harassment and retaliation,” Katz and Eisenberg said.
It was James’ investigative report substantiating sexual misconduct claims made by a bevy of women against Cuomo — including Bennett — that led to his resignation in August, 2021 under the threat of impeachment — though he continues to deny the accusations.
Cuomo’s lawyers said they’re digging to prove his innocence.
“Not a single one of Ms. Bennett’s allegations will withstand the mountains of contemporaneous video and text message evidence that we now have but that were never turned over to OAG [the state Office of Attorney General],” Glavin and Trzaskoma wrote.
“Governor Cuomo has no interest in settling this lawsuit. He never sexually harassed Ms. Bennett and he has the right to prove his innocence.”
