The corruption of the Cuomo family knows no bounds. On Thursday, disgraced former CNN poster boy Chris Cuomo was back in the news again after the New York Post used New York State’s Freedom of Information Law to obtain e-mails showing Cuomo was offered an experimental COVID treatment, through his brother’s office, after he contracted the virus in April 2020. Although, he eventually turned it down because it “[s]ounds spooky.”
According to the e-mails obtained by The Post and reporter Conor Skelding, the New York Blood Center reached out to Fredo’s brother, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office to pass along an offer of “special access to an experimental therapy — virtually unobtainable by anyone unrelated to” a Cuomo.
In an e-mail to Andrew’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, a representative for the blood bank’s CEO reached out with the offer:
The half-billion-dollar New York Blood Center’s boss, Chris Hillyer, offered “convalescent plasma” to the then-governor’s CNN host brother Chris Cuomo, on April 17, 2020.
“Should the Cuomo family elect to take Dr. Hillyer up on his offer, his cell number is [redacted],” Mary Ann Tighe — a real-estate mogul who acted as a go-between — wrote, according to emails obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information Law request.
“During the pandemic’s early days, when no therapeutics or mRNA vaccines were available, scarce convalescent plasma — drawn from people recovered from COVID-19 and laden with potentially life-saving antibodies — was in high demand,” The Post recalled.
Almost a year after his bout with COVID, it came to light that Chris and the rest of the Cuomo family had gotten prioritized testing on Andrew’s orders, including a police escort for the samples.
“High-level members of the state Department of Health were directed last year by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker to conduct prioritized coronavirus testing on the governor's relatives as well as influential people with ties to the administration, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter,” the Albany Times-Union reported at the time.
Adding: “Members of Cuomo's family including his brother, his mother and at least one of his sisters were also tested by top health department officials — some several times…”
But while he was more than happy to cut in line for the testing, Chris was apprehensive of getting a blood transfusion:
The then-CNN host asked his brother’s right-hand aide, Melissa DeRosa, who passed on Tighe’s note: “What is that?”
“Someone’s blood who already had COVID — experimental treatment…” she responded.
“Sounds spooky,” Chris Cuomo, 51, wrote.
“Yes but, hey, far be it for me to hold back an offer of someone’s blood…” she deadpanned.
(…)
“I dont want to try something that extreme when I Am not dying,” he wrote. “But thanks.”
The e-mails also contained further revelations regarding Andrew’s nursing home deaths scandal and Chris’s role in trying to help manage it:
In March 2021, Chris Cuomo advised Executive Chamber staff as they planned a response to an article on the unfolding nursing-home COVID-19 death scandal.
“For this to be effective the … caption must may say something abt times being wrong or being misleading … Then say why … Say you werent given time to respond,” he wrote.
“The broadcast journalist was copied on hundreds of emails between government workers and outside advisors — even ones as mundane as making grammatical changes to draft statements,” Skelding said.
