The US attorney in Brooklyn and the FBI began a preliminary investigation into how the administration of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo handled data on deaths in Covid-19 nursing homes.
After praising his leadership when his state became the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, the governor is now handling charges of underreporting deaths in nursing homes.
In the past few weeks, the administration has revealed that 15,000 long-term care residents have died, against 8,500 previously reported.
Spokesmen for the US attorney in Brooklyn and the FBI declined to comment Wednesday night.
The Albany Times Union broke the news about the investigation.
“As we said publicly, the DOJ has been investigating this for months. We have cooperated with them and will continue, “said a senior adviser to the governor, Rich Azzopardi, on Wednesday night.
Last month, State Attorney General Letitia James released a hard-hitting report that said the state Health Department underestimated the number of Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes by up to 50 percent.
And last week, Melissa DeRosa, Cuomo’s top aide, said the state postponed the release of the full death count in August for fear that President Donald Trump would use the information against Cuomo.
On Monday, the governor acknowledged that “things should have been done differently” and insisted that “lessons were learned”.
“In retrospect, should we have given more priority to responding to requests for information? In my opinion, yes. And that is what created the void,” said Cuomo. “I just want to make sure that people know that these are the facts: everything that could have been done has been done.”
Democratic and Republican lawmakers in New York are now reconsidering their decision to give Cuomo emergency powers to tackle the Covid-19 crisis.
New York was hit hard in the early days of the pandemic and, until recently, the state led the country in Covid-19 deaths. He recorded 47,301 on Wednesday, second only to 47,670 California deaths, according to the latest data from NBC News.
Most deaths in New York occurred in the early days of the pandemic, when public health officials were trying to find out how the coronavirus was spreading.
The Eastern District of the United States is likely to deliver this investigation in part because US Attorney Audrey Strauss for the Southern District is the mother of Cuomo’s aide, DeRosa, and would have to abstain and step down.
A spokesman for the Southern District Attorney’s Office also declined to comment Wednesday night.
