Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo secured a temporary restraining order on Thursday in his legal battle with the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government over his memoir that focused on his administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cuomo filed a lawsuit with the Albany County Supreme Court this week, seeking to prohibit COELIG from looking into his $5.1 million book deal further. His lawyers alleged their client’s constitutional rights were violated by the New York regulatory body.
Cuomo continues to maintain that the panel was illegally formed after it replaced the Joint Commission on Public Ethics. COELIG’s predecessor started the investigation into Cuomo’s book deal.
Counsel from both sides agreed to the temporary restraining order, which halts the ethics commission’s investigation into whether the former governor inappropriately used his staff in the writing of his book. American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic was published on Oct. 13, 2020.
A Cuomo spokesperson said the former governor’s staff worked on the book voluntarily.
Oral arguments in the case were scheduled for April 30, 2026.
Judge Thomas Marcelle, who is overseeing the case, previously sided with Cuomo’s argument that the COELIG investigation was unconstitutional, but his decision was reversed. The state’s highest court ultimately upheld COELIG in a 4-3 ruling from February. That ruling allowed the panel’s investigation to proceed until the latest legal development.
The temporary restraining order will stay in effect until the judge makes a decision on Cuomo’s request for a preliminary injunction.
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Before losing to Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s mayoral election last month, Cuomo took responsibility for the nursing home deaths that were caused by his pandemic-era policies in 2020.
“There were no visitors allowed into nursing homes, and I apologize for any family that lost a loved one during that time,” he said on Election Day. “It was on my watch, and I understand how terrible it was.”
