Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo is trying to slap a gag order on a sex accuser’s lawyers to keep them from continuing to publicly discuss the $28 million in taxpayer funds paid out to defend him and others related to his cases.
Cuomo is legally entitled to have the state pay for his defense costs connected to his time in office, his camp says — yet accuser Charlotte Bennett’s legal team has been bringing up the staggering, growing legal tab to “prejudice” him with potential jurors and to try to force a settlement in her case.
“There is no question that such statements are gratuitous and highly prejudicial to Governor Cuomo [indeed, intentionally so],” Cuomo’s lawyers,Theresa Trzaskoma and Rita Glavin, wrote in a Dec. 3 letter to Manhattan federal Judge Sarah Cave, seeking the gag order.
Cuomo’s legal team is playing hardball as it prepares to grill Bennett in a two-day deposition Dec. 18 and 19 — a session expected to total at least 14 hours and include questioning from other defendants’ lawyers, court records show.