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By Leon R. Koziol, J.D.

Former civil rights attorney and upstate city councilman

The ultimate hypocrite, Andrew Cuomo, is defying everyone again like he did the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption in 2014. From the president of the United States to his many sexual harassment victims, he continues to disregard the caliber and number of citizens calling for his resignation. Despite his own public pleas in March to reserve judgment until the outcome of an investigation by New York’s Attorney General, he continues to hunker down like a cockroach now that the adverse outcome has been made public.

Should this be a surprise to anyone? Andy is not your average governor as he himself professes. For those of us in New York who know him, however, he is way beyond average but not the way he would like to be known in his self-love books. At one point during all the hoopla surrounding the public comparisons of his brother Chris to Fredo, he threatened to punch out Donald Trump, falling back on his Italian heritage for justification behind the violent reaction.

Now he’s using that same heritage to justify sexual harassment of women and a hostile work environment which the newly released report condemned in resounding fashion. Since when does a politician use his or her family and heritage to explain kissing, caressing and hustling of women while collecting an exorbitant state salary in a state owned mansion? Worse yet, he is using the power and prestige of public office to achieve such misconduct. In the process, he is giving both his family and heritage a bad name.

None of this is registering in Cuomo’s constantly scheming head. And there is no insecticide, vaccine or remedy to eradicate this political cockroach. In the past, we at Leon Koziol.com saw through his sick rhetoric and an ego that makes Donald Trump appear tolerable. For example, at the onset of the pandemic, we ran a series known as Corona Chronicles to expose the real Andy Cuomo during the height of his popularity. We were not so duped as the liberals were to hold their media darling to the same standards as those they routinely scrutinized in public office.

Maybe they finally discovered a sliver of moral fiber to do the right thing here.

Leon R. Koziol is a former civil rights attorney who took a stand against his profession for its abuse of parents in divorce and family courts. He was invited to testify before Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Moreland Commission on Public Corruption in 2013. However that commission was prematurely dissolved one year later when deliberations began implicating the governor himself. Not to be duped, one of the presenters, federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, seized commission files resulting in the convictions of the leaders of both houses of New York’s legislature and a top Cuomo aide. The governor managed to dodge similar liability. As a civil rights attorney, Mr. Koziol was among the pioneers in upstate New York to hold sexual harassment predators accountable in our workplaces, i.e. Currie v Kowalewski, 842 F. Supp. 57 (NDNY 1994).