The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Cuomo exit isn’t stopping push for answers on nursing home deaths
Sexual harassment allegations cost New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo his job. Now, many want to see him answer for a scandal that cut to the heart of his reputation as a pandemic hero and may have had life-and-death consequences — his administration’s handling of outbreaks in nursing homes.
Months before a blistering investigation found Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women, the same attorney general concluded that the administration understated the true death toll in nursing homes by thousands and that fatalities may have been fueled by a state order that effectively forced such homes to accept recovering COVID-19 patients.
Whatever action may lie ahead on the harassment claims, families of the more than 15,000 New Yorkers who died in nursing homes say they want accountability, too, and are urging state lawmakers and the U.S. Justice Department to keep investigating Cuomo after he leaves office.
“The nursing home people and their families have not had a day of reckoning,“said Vivian Zayas, who blames Cuomo for her mother’s death in a West Islip, N.Y, nursing home.
“This not a victory yet,” she said. “A victory is when the whole nursing home scandal is
blown open.”
New York’s Assembly had been moving toward impeachment of Cuomo before the Democrat announced his resignation, and his handling of nursing homes was set to be a part of that, with more than a half-million pages of evidence gathered.
Lawmakers are now weighing
whether they can and should push forward with impeachment once Cuomo is out of office in two weeks. One member of the Judiciary Committee said impeachment would amount to “vengeance.” Other members of the committee have pushed to at least issue a report.
“If he committed a crime,
just because he resigns those investigations are not going to go away,” said Assembly member Ron Kim, a Democrat from Queens, whose uncle died in a nursing home. “Justice for the women is the first step. Getting the justice for the families who lost loved ones is a longer journey because it involves a whole ecosystem.”