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Foti is a partner with\u00a0Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello, a Manhattan law firm that also represented former Cuomo adviser Richard Azzopardi in the sexual harassment case. The judge also dismissed the claims against Azzopardi.<\/p>\n
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In the dispute over DeRosa\u2019s legal fees,\u00a0the comptroller\u2019s office filed a\u00a0response asserting that DeRosa\u2019s attorneys unnecessarily continued \u201cpreparing for and attending depositions and status conferences\u201d after \u201cshe was no longer a party to any action or proceeding against her.\u201d<\/p>\n
The disagreement began nine months ago when the comptroller\u2019s office sent Foti a letter asserting her firm had \u201capparently continued to voluntarily participate in the case and \u2026 requested reimbursement for services rendered on discovery-related activity related to other named parties and non-parties.\u201d The comptroller\u2019s letter said other tasks they billed to the state included preparing for and attending 10 depositions, participating in court conferences and filing letters in various discovery matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also note that it appears from the record that many appearances by your firm were simultaneously on behalf of both Ms. DeRosa and Mr. Azzopardi,\u201d although his legal costs in the case had not been authorized under state Public Officers Law.<\/p>\n
In August, Foti sent a lengthy letter to the comptroller\u2019s office detailing the reasons their legal work on behalf of DeRosa had continued after she was dismissed as a defendant in the case. She also noted that the legal expenses of DeRosa and Azzopardi had been separated and the state was not billed for any work on his behalf by the firm.<\/p>\n
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\u201cA review of the record will demonstrate that, except for limited situations where Ms.\u00a0DeRosa was the actual focus of a document demand or the deposition testimony, this firm took necessary action, but no more than necessary, action to preserve Ms. DeRosa\u2019s rights,\u201d Foti wrote. \u201cIn fact, throughout the defense of the case, this firm relied on the attorneys representing former\u00a0Gov. Andrew Cuomo to take the laboring oar on all discovery disputes, document review, deposition preparation and examination of witness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foti said although they participated in depositions after DeRosa was dismissed as a defendant, they did so \u201cfor purposes of protecting the record and remaining knowledgeable of any potential evidence that might implicate claims against Ms. DeRosa.\u201d She added that they did not \u201crepeat the work done already by the Cuomo team.\u201d<\/p>\n
But attorneys for the state have argued that DeRosa and her attorneys are seeking \u201cto saddle New York taxpayers with over $700,000 in legal fees incurred\u00a0after DeRosa obtained an order dismissing all claims against her in federal court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four years ago, Cuomo became embroiled in a five-month legal battle in which the state attorney general\u2019s office fought against having the state represent him or pay for his legal costs in the federal lawsuit filed by the female State Police investigator, who has accused him of facilitating her assignment to his protective detail and then sexually harassing her.<\/p>\n
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But in January 2023, a judge ruled the state must cover\u00a0Cuomo\u2019s legal costs.\u00a0Since then, the fees being covered by taxpayer dollars have soared.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the cases involved a federal sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Charlotte Bennett, a former aide. She\u00a0settled her lawsuit with the state last year for $450,000. That case cost the state more than $9.8 million in legal expenses.<\/p>\n
A third case filed against Cuomo involved allegations from Brittany Commisso, a former aide who accused Cuomo of groping her during an encounter at the governor\u2019s mansion in 2020. Last year, she agreed to a $450,000 settlement in that case, which was filed in state Supreme Court in Albany and cost New York taxpayers about $1.2 million to defend Cuomo.<\/p>\n
Cuomo had opposed closing Commisso\u2019s case, even after the state agreed to settle it. His attorneys allege text messages that were received from pretrial discovery disclosures undermined Commisso\u2019s account of what happened at the mansion and that they wanted those records unsealed and made public.<\/p>\n
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Kevin Mintzer, an attorney who represented Commisso along with attorney Mariann Wang, responded to Cuomo\u2019s arguments last year, saying\u00a0\u201cthere are no documents that rebut or ‘conclusively disprove’ the claims that (Commisso) has made in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n
A judge\u00a0rejected Cuomo\u2019s motion to unseal the text messages last year, citing his then-campaign for New York City mayor, which was not successful. State Supreme Court Justice Denise A. Hartman\u00a0noted in her ruling that the former governor\u2019s \u201cdesire to ‘out’ (Commisso\u2019s) text messages in the hopes of obtaining public vindication heading into the 2025 New York City mayoral general election does not establish the kind of prejudice that would justify\u201d keeping the case open.<\/p>\n
Attorneys for the state of New York had also opposed Cuomo\u2019s efforts, noting that the litigation in the case has been costly and that closing the case would prevent taxpayers from incurring additional legal expenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the state has indicated, New York state taxpayers have been forced to expend significant amounts of money to defend this and other civil actions brought against Cuomo already,\u201d Hartman wrote in her decision. \u201cCuomo has not advanced any viable argument for why the taxpayers of this state should continue to foot the bill for his continued use of civil litigation discovery devices to further his efforts to resurrect his public image.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Cuomo\u2019s attorneys Rita\u00a0Glavin and Theresa Trzaskoma released a statement after the settlement with Commisso was announced, claiming\u00a0that it \u201cdoes not include any admission of liability, (and) is intended to end Ms.\u00a0Commisso\u2019s failed efforts to leverage a meritless lawsuit into a multimillion-dollar payday while hiding the truth from the public.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
They also characterized the amount of the settlement in court filings as a \u201clow ball\u201d settlement. But the judge noted in her decision that his attorneys were silent on the fact that Bennett had settled her lawsuit with the state for the same amount\u00a0\u2014 $450,000.<\/p>\n
While Cuomo has consistently denied harassing anyone, he resigned<\/a> in August 2021\u00a0rather than face an impeachment proceeding.<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state comptroller\u2019s office is disputing that taxpayers should have to pay more than $700,000 in legal fees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[844,9,11,10,49,51,50,1165],"class_list":{"0":"post-180851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-latestnews","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-new-york-state","13":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-state-news","15":"tag-state-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}