Name: Cuomo's new ethics chair ran governor's 'defense' program
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Cuomo's new ethics chair ran governor's 'defense' program

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateALBANY – It remains unclear why the chairman of New York’s ethics commission resigned. But the decision certainly seemed abrupt.On the afternoon of Feb. 10, Michael K. Rozen had been scheduled to lead a subcommittee meeting of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics. But just hours before it was set to begin, Rozen sent an email statingTo critics of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, the timing suggested he was tightening control over JCOPE, two days after news broke of a rare investigation initiated by the watchdog panel that would touch Cuomo's office. In addition, not long before he resigned, Rozen is said to have expressed openness to filling the long-vacant post of JCOPE executive director with a candidate without close ties to Cuomo — which would be a first in the panel's decade-long existence.Whatever the reason for Rozen's exit, Cuomo had the unilateral power to replace him and appoint a new chair. He immediately named Camille Joseph Varlack, an attorney who served in the governor's administration for four years. A review of Varlack’s resume reveals deep involvement in a Cuomo program that – like JCOPE – has been touted as a good-government initiative, but has in the view of critics been used to keep a lid on scandals.In 2015, longtime Cuomo aide Linda A. Lacewell&nbsp;set up a little-noticed program spanning the executive branch. Lacewell, at that point in the post of "chief risk officer" for the Executive Chamber, embedded highly paid senior attorneys in two dozen state agencies."I hired them and put them there," Lacewell said in 2018.They were to be the eyes and ears of the governor’s office, on alert for ethical pitfalls. They would quickly report back to Lacewell, allowing Cuomo to better control and direct agency actions. Varlack was part of this network of administration attorneys, and quickly rose in the ranks, eventually taking over Lacewell's position as chief risk officer.When announced, New York’s first-ever statewide “ethics, risk and compliance initiative” was framed as bringing a private-sector risk management model to state agencies and public authorities. But for the governor’s office, the job also means managing negative information that might come to light — a practice now exploding into public view during the scandal over Cuomo’s suppression of nursing home death data.Lacewell, now the superintendent of the state Department of Financial Services, leads Cuomo's COVID-19 task force that is a focus of the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s into the administration's handling of the virus in nursing homes.A function of “special counsels” embedded at state agencies, according to sources speaking on condition of anonymity, has been helping flag and manage potentially troublesome Freedom of Information Law requests filed with those agencies by the media and others — exactly the sort of requests that are at the center of the administration's controversial handling of nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic. Cuomo's administration often drags out, by months and even years, the release of public records.When Varlack joined the Cuomo administration in May 2015, it was as an officer in Lacewell’s new risk management program, serving as the Department of Financial Services’ special counsel for ethics, risk and compliance. Varlack was quickly promoted to a job in Cuomo’s office, where she became Lacewell's deputy director of the recently created program. She was promoted to director of state operations and chief risk officer before leaving for a private law practice in April 2019, according to her LinkedIn profile.Varlack has become chair of JCOPE as it has endured years of increasing criticism over the perception that its actions — as well as its penchant for inaction — are dictated by Cuomo’s office.Cuomo senior advisor Richard Azzopardi said that Varlack, a former prosecutor in Brooklyn and the first Black woman to lead JCOPE, had "helped build and run a nation-leading statewide ethics program, which helps reduce risk and elevates standards of integrity.""Additionally, she brings much needed diversity as the chair of JCOPE and we are honored she agreed to serve," Azzopardi said.‘Minister of Defense’Lacewell, a veteran of the same Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office that's now probing the coronavirus task force, has a reputation as an especially loyal and combative aide in an administration known for those traits.In 2018, on the witness stand in Manhattan federal court, Lacewell was asked how she came to be referred to as Cuomo's “Minister of Defense.”Testifying in the 2018 corruption trial of former top Cuomo aide Joseph Percoco, who is serving a six-year prison sentence, Lacewell explained that while other top Cuomo aides would rush down the political playing field “scoring points,” her job was to make sure “they don't fall into a pitfall or trap for the unwary.”“My role was principally on what we call the defense side,” Lacewell said. “And so I would typically be in the room to focus on ethics and risk – and potential reaction from the public or the press.”Lacewell testified that the “ethics, risk and compliance” initiative was meant to reduce the potential liability&nbsp;posed by dozens of state agencies handling billions of dollars in contracts. Her team of agency lawyers kept Cuomo’s office abreast of those risks, allowing the Executive Chamber to quickly direct responses to emerging threats — whether cyber, litigation or financial — as well as Freedom of Information Law requests.Embedding senior lawyers at two dozen key agencies who reported back to Lacewell would “save taxpayer money and protect integrity across the state,” Lacewell testified. The agency lawyers each have the title of “special counsel for ethics, risk, and compliance." The initiative derived&nbsp;from a "direct conversation" with Cuomo, Lacewell said.Lacewell testified that she had done similar work “volunteering” her time for Cuomo’s political campaign, examining the optics of campaign donations from companies seeking state government contracts. A main motivation for this practice, Lacewell again stated, was avoiding public criticism from the media and good-government groups.Percoco’s defense attorney, Barry Bohrer, asked Lacewell if her work as Cuomo’s “Minister of Defense” meant her job was to protect “the reputation of the office.”“Protecting the employees, the governor, and the public trust,” Lacewell said.One accomplishment touted by Lacewell’s initiative is New York’s “Open FOIL” program, which allows the public to easily submit open records requests at more than 50 agencies. Azzopardi called it an "award-winning, first-in-the-nation online platform which improves transparency, efficiency and ease of use for FOIL requestors.”But streamlining and centralizing the process also allows the governor’s office to more immediately flag potentially problematic requests filed at state agencies, which then often face the lengthy delays.Among other recent accomplishments, Cuomo's office said the special counsels led efforts to flag fraudulent unemployment claims that saved the state billions, and vetted the credentials of 80,000 medical volunteers assisting with COVID-19.Azzopardi said many of the special counsels are former prosecutors and "any challenge to their integrity or commitment is outrageous and whoever you are talking to doesn't know what they are talking about.""Let's be clear, the inclination that they somehow impede the FOIL process is wrong," Azzopardi said. "They are neither gatekeepers nor decision makers in the FOIL process."Reached by phone, Lacewell referred the Times Union to her agency’s press office, which declined to make her available for an interview.Lacewell has a long history of screening Cuomo's official records. In 2012 – after&nbsp; the Times Union from Cuomo's term as attorney general – Lacewell visited the State Archives five times, sign-in sheets showed. The State Archives housed records from Cuomo's attorney general tenure, and Lacewell ended up personally pulling dozens of folders so they could not be scrutinized.Legal layersWhen Lacewell testified during the Percoco trial, private attorney Judith Mogul was sitting in the courtroom. At one point, Mogul emerged from the audience to argue that a Cuomo document was legally privileged information. Mogul stated that she was representing Lacewell in “personal and professional” capacity.Mogul at the time was a principal at a New York City law firm, Morvillo Abramowitz, that has a deep history of navigating Cuomo through legal trouble. The white-collar firm has represented the Executive Chamber during three criminal investigations, including the Buffalo Billion-related trials as well as one civil matter.In total, Morvillo Abramowitz has been paid $670,000 by Cuomo’s campaign, and $3.2 million by state taxpayers. The cost might be more, except that Mogul – who billed hundreds of hours working for Cuomo while at the law firm – was hired away by Executive Chamber in early 2019 as a $173,000-a-year “special counsel.”In her current post, Mogul is now the boss of the Executive Chamber staffer who leads the “ethics, risk and compliance initiative” that Lacewell founded. And Mogul is one of the two staffers in the governor’s office who principally interacts with JCOPE, according to the agency's general counsel Monica Stamm.At the ethics agency’s most recent meeting in January, Stamm said that in the Executive Chamber, she primarily interacts with Mogul and Julia Kupiec, a special counsel and ethics officer for Cuomo.Varlack, who did not respond to requests for comment, is a former Executive Chamber colleague of both of those Cuomo liaisons to JCOPE. And Mogul was the attorney for Lacewell,&nbsp;Varlack’s former boss.As chair, Varlack will be tasked with working with JCOPE staff and setting the agenda for meetings. She will also presumably lead the the now-20-month search for an executive director to lead the agency.Since JCOPE was founded in 2011, all three of the agency’s top staffers had previously held positions working under Cuomo — a pattern that has fed the public perception that the ethics agency lacks independence from the governor. Though similar complaints of coordination with elected officials have at times been leveled against non-Cuomo appointees to the panel, the governor names more commissioners to JCOPE than any other leader does.Cuomo-appointed JCOPE&nbsp;commissioners have been pushing for Stamm – a Cuomo staffer when he was state attorney general – to be promoted to the executive director position. But the six legislative appointees have resisted hiring anyone with close ties to Albany’s political infrastructure, and Stamm has not gained the necessary eight commissioner votes needed.At a panel discussion held last week by the New York City Bar Association, Stamm said she did not actually know Cuomo "well," noting that&nbsp;since working in Cuomo’s attorney general office, she has held a job at JCOPE for nine years. She argued that all three prior JCOPE executive directors were “eminently qualified," and that it was a “misconception” that Cuomo exerts undue influence.“I think that people tell that story, and manipulate that story, but I think If you looked at the work that we do, you don’t really see that playing out,” Stamm said. “There hasn’t been any interference that the public is concerned about.”‘A setback'In the days before Rozen’s abrupt replacement as chairman, several issues were swirling related to JCOPE and Cuomo.Three days before Rozen resigned, the that although JCOPE approved the October publication of Cuomo’s most recent book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Cuomo's office wouldn't answer a question about whether, in seeking the agency's approval, the governor submitted all information that JCOPE says is required of state employees.Then, two days before Rozen resigned, the that JCOPE was investigating the Syracuse-area firm COR Development – a company at the center of the “Buffalo Billion” scandal that rocked the Cuomo administration.Meanwhile, with Cuomo's six commissioners unable to push through Stamm's appointment as executive director, Rozen before his resignation expressed openness to hiring a former judge to the position, a source said. Such a candidate might have been acceptable to JCOPE's legislative appointees looking to back someone with more distance from Cuomo's orbit.Before Rozen resigned, commissioners had gotten the green light to check the references of three finalists for the post. With Rozen gone, it’s unclear where the process stands.Reached last week, Rozen declined to answer questions.Azzopardi, the Cuomo advisor, did not answer specific questions about whether the governor's book deal, the COR Development investigation or JCOPE's executive director search contributed to Rozen's departure.“I don’t follow every one of these wild theories, but he resigned and we thank him for his service," Azzopardi said.The status quo may serve Cuomo's interests: Over the past 20 months, Stamm has been serving as JCOPE’s de facto executive director. Even if she can’t win the votes to be formally promoted, the Cuomo commissioners’ preferred candidate is still running the agency.JCOPE Commissioner Gary Lavine, a Senate Republican appointee to the body, has been a vocal advocate for making JCOPE more independent of Albany’s political establishment.Rozen’s resignation hinders those efforts, he said.“It does not serve the public interest to leave the (executive director) position open. It’s been open already for an extended period of time,” Lavine said. “The resignation of Chairman Rozen – in my view – is a setback in the process.”

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateALBANY – It remains unclear why the chairman of New York’s ethics commission resigned. But the decision certainly seemed abrupt.On the afternoon of Feb. 10, Michael K. Rozen had been scheduled to lead a subcommittee meeting of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics. But just hours before it was set to begin, Rozen sent an email statingTo critics of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, the timing suggested he was tightening control over JCOPE, two days after news broke of a rare investigation initiated by the watchdog panel that would touch...

Cuomo's new ethics chair ran governor's 'defense' program

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