City Comptroller Brad Lander went after his biggest rival in the 2025 NYC mayor’s race, Andrew Cuomo, over the escalating cost in state taxpayer dollars spent defending the former governor in a litany of lawsuits connected to scandals nearly four years after Cuomo resigned.
Lander, during a Monday morning Manhattan news conference, charged that Cuomo let New York state fecklessly spend far more than previously reported to defend him in lawsuits brought by some of the roughly a dozen women who have accused him of sexual misconduct. He argued that the millions of dollars in legal expenses were a misuse of taxpayer dollars and further called on Cuomo to commit to picking up his own legal tab going forward.
The presser followed a report in the New York Law Journal about the state spending roughly $60 million on legal matters related to the scandals that ultimately led Cuomo to resign in August 2021.
“Let’s be clear about this: Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed 13 women, and now he’s legally harassing them, and he’s making taxpayers an accessory to his harassment and bullying,” Lander said, referring to the number of women alleging misconduct cited in a 2024 Department of Justice report on the accusations.
Cuomo fiercely denies the allegations, and his team points to five district attorneys who declined to bring criminal charges over some of them as vindication. His spokesperson Rich Azzopardi called Lander’s comments “false, defamatory and proof of a campaign without something to say or a real vision for New York’s future.”
The comptroller based his broadside on the Law Journal report, which cited data from the state comptroller’s office. However, that report also made clear that large swaths of the $60 million sum were not directly spent on Cuomo’s legal expenses.
It was previously reported that the state had spent $28 million so far on representing Cuomo and others in legal matters related to his alleged behavior.
Cuomo campaign hits back
Azzopardi also disputed Lander’s assertion that he spent $60 million defending himself in court.
Azzopardi pointed out that the sum cited in the Law Journal report includes outside counsel that state agencies hired after state Attorney General Letitia James’ office declined to represent them in legal matters. He also painted probes into Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic, which revolved around his edict that COVID-19 patients be readmitted to nursing homes, as political investigations based on January findings from the US Department of Justice’s Inspector General.
Azzopardi, in a statement, further blasted Lander over a New York Post report alleging that he is divesting the city’s pension funds from Israeli government bonds, in what it described as a break of practice from pior city comptrollers and his state counterpart.
“Brad Lander should be more concerned about his ethical lapses stemming from his anti-Israel pension fund divestment strategy than about legal fees stemming from the AG’s multiple recusals and to defend from COVID investigations that the DOJ inspector general found were a corrupt and politicized use of federal resources,” Azzopardi said.
Lander on Monday disputed that report, claiming it is his office’s longstanding policy not to directly invest in foreign sovereign debt. He added that the city’s pension funds are still invested in Israeli companies.
“We don’t directly purchase the bonds of foreign countries,” Lander told reporters. “And so that’s the policy that I have followed as comptroller.”
How the money was spent
According to the New York Law Journal report, only about $18 million of the $60 million was directly spent by Cuomo on defending against three civil lawsuits brought by some of his sexual harassment accusers. Cuomo’s publicly funded counsel is covered under the state Public Officers Law.
Much of the rest of the sum was spent in more indirect ways.
An $11.7 million chunk was spent on investigations paid for through state budget appropriations, according to the report. Those include James’ 2021 probe into Cuomo’s allegations, an inquiry into the former governor’s handling of COVID-19, impeachment proceedings against him, and other matters.
The remaining $31.3 million was spent on state agency contracts with outside law firms. Those were for investigations into the accusations against Cuomo, his pandemic response, and the $5 million book deal about his administration’s handling of COVID-19.
During his press conference, Lander urged Cuomo to commit to not spending a “single additional cent” of taxpayer money on his legal defense and to reimburse New Yorkers for what the state has already spent.
“Sixty million dollars is enough,” Lander said. “It’s really a simple question. Andrew, now that you’ve spent approximately $60 million in taxpayer funds on your personal legal defense, including for your serial sexual harassment, will you commit today that anything additional that you spend on legal defense comes out of your pocket or comes out of the pockets of the billionaires who are supporting you?”
