New York’s COVID corruption stands out only for our leaders’ hypocrisy

New York’s COVID-era corruption fallout is still raining down, years after the last mask mandate expired.

Former Deputy State Budget Director Sandra Beattie just got dinged a measly $5,000 fine by the pathetic state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government for helping a buddy get a bite out of a fat $11 million contract to run then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “Excelsior Pass” app, which did . . . something he insisted was urgently necessary.

Beattie vacationed regularly at the Florida home of connected lobbyist Michael Balboni while his clients had business pending with her office; the fine is for failing to clear these trips with ethics officers or even report them.

Shortly after her sunny jaunts, Beattie wedged Balboni’s firm into the Excelsior project as a consultant and lobbyist for Deloitte, its prime contractor.

Over two years, Balboni pulled down $300,000 in fees, all Beattie-approved.

He has since leveraged his connections into the presidency of Adelphi University, a gig that pays in the range of a million bucks a year.

Balboni is “the leader best positioned to secure public-private partnerships,” announced Adelphi in May — a fine euphemism for his proven talent in leeching of taxpayer dollars into private hands.

Of course, if it weren’t for self-dealing, New York state would make no deals at all.

Recall how Gov. Kathy Hochul, then just three months in office, in November 2021 declared a “state of emergency” in the name of expediting pandemic counter-measures — and proceeded to award a no-bid $637 million contract for 52 million COVID tests to Digital Gadgets, the company of Charlie Tebele, who just days before had (with relatives) shoveled $300,000 into her campaign coffers.

Digital Gadgets didn’t even make the tests; it just played middleman to turn a 100% profit while the state paid far more than it needed to.

As an added bonus for the family’s good works, Hochul’s campaign even hired Tebele’s son.

And this of course followed King Cuomo’s exploitation of his media-awarded status as America’s COVID savior to score a $5 million book contract tooting his own “leadership” horn.

Never mind his care-home mandates, which needlessly endangered seniors and developmentally-challenged adults by forcing still-infected people into care facilities — purely to satisfy the gov’s hospital-lobbyist donors.

Also, please pay no attention to the state employees who actually wrote the book, or the bogus ethics waiver Cuomo got to stamp the deal as kosher.

Nothing unusual in New York state, where pay-to-play is as venerable and honored a tradition as fudging per diem expenses or routine 20% raises for elected officials.

The COVID corruption really only stands out because it came from “leaders” who were posturing as the public’s saviors even as they dipped their hands in the till.