Judge Sanford Berland, the executive director of the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics, last week told legislators that JCOPE will look at clawing back the profits ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo made from his $5.1 million book deal. Yes, please!
If it can be shown that Cuomo improperly used state resources including staff time for the project, Berland envisions “a penalty that includes recoupment of the compensation or benefits received by the individual.” Good: It would be laughable if JCOPE hit the ex-gov with a mere $5,000 fine for a $5 million book deal — and, as state Sen. Dan Stec (R-Queensbury) put it, not “much of a deterrent.”
Happily, it’s not up to JCOPE alone: The FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are also on the case.
Which is all to the good, since JCOPE would never have gone after Cuomo were he still in office: The panel’s failure to ever target the powerful is just one reason it’s widely known as “J-Joke.”
Indeed, Cuomo long ensured that his loyalists controlled the ethics panel: A full house-cleaning there is now in order, as it is across state government.
That includes the MTA. In particular, board member Larry Schwartz, one of the most rank Cuomo loyalists, must go as soon as the Legislature returns for the special session that Gov. Hochul has demanded.
And if Hochul truly wants to end Albany’s culture of corruption, she’ll support a constitutional amendment to create a genuinely independent and effective state ethics agency.