GOP lawmakers ask AG Garland to probe whether Cuomo's group home directive violated residents' civil rights

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Elise Stefanik: Democratic governors who followed Cuomo nursing home policy should be investigated

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. slams Gov. Andrew Cuomo over ‘abuse of power’ in sexual harassment allegations and nursing home death scandal.

Republican members of Congress from New York are calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Gov. Andrew Cuomo's April 2020 directive requiring group homes for the developmentally disabled to take in residents with coronavirus who have been declared "medically stable."

In a letter sent to Garland on Wednesday, Reps. Claudia Tenney, Elise Stefanik, Lee Zeldin, Nicole Malliotakis and Chris Jacobs urged the Justice Department to look into possible civil rights violations from the order and questioned whether the reported number of deaths of group home residents is accurate, given the past underreporting of nursing home deaths following a similar directive that applied to those facilities.

"New York State's policies placed those with intellectual or developmental disabilities at increased risk of exposure to COVID, and we fear COVID-related deaths in group homes have been underrepreorted," the letter said. "Given Governor Cuomo's poor track record of transparently sharing COVID-related data with the public, we therefore call on the Department of Justice to initiate an investigation into this matter to determine first whether the civil rights of those with disabilities have been violated and second to assess whether the statistics shared with federal authorities by New York State are accurate and truthful."

Cuomo has been facing scrutiny – as well as calls for his impeachment or resignation – due to scandals including his administration's handling of nursing home deaths. On March 25, 2020, he issued a directive requiring nursing homes to accept residents with COVID-19 who had been released from hospitals.

Critics have suggested that this directive led to thousands of casualties, and Cuomo's administration withheld the accurate number of nursing home deaths for months. At first, the administration only counted those who died while still at the facilities, leaving out those who died after being taken to hospitals. An investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James found that state officials underreported COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes by as much as 50%.

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Cuomo issued a similar directive to group homes on April 10. It states that before patients are sent back to their group homes, hospitals "must confirm to the Certified Residential Facility, by telephone, that the resident is medically stable for discharge and whether the individual is asymptomatic." It also states that "[n]o individual shall be denied re-admission or admission to a Certified Residential Facility based solely on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks before getting vaccinated at a church in the Harlem section of New York, Wednesday, March 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Pool) ((AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Pool))

The Republicans' letter points out the directive was first issued early in the pandemic, "when guidance was changing, consistent protocols were not in place, and shortages of Personal Protective Equipment were widespread."

While Cuomo rescinded his nursing home order in May, the group home order remains in effect.

The letter mentions that New York’s Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) claims there have been 552 pandemic-related deaths in group homes so far, but the Republican members of Congress cautioned that this number could be too low, given that the state has thousands of group homes and the underreporting of nursing home deaths.

Fox News reached out to the Justice Department and Cuomo's office for comment on the letter, but neither immediately responded.

"Given the Governor's reckless and reprehensible nursing home directive, and the cover up that ensued, we have reason to fear that the number of COVID-related deaths in group homes is higher than what the state has reported," Stefanik said in a statement. "New Yorkers who are living with intellectual or developmental disabilities in group homes may be at an increased risk of dying from COVID-19, and they deserve protection and clarity. The DOJ must assess whether this harmful directive violates the civil rights of some of our most vulnerable and if the reported number of deaths in group homes is accurate."

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The OPWDD told the New York Post in a statement that group home residents who had been hospitalized with COVID-19 "were only returned to their homes after being deemed safe to return by the hospital physician, in consultation with the residential provider."

The agency told Fox News that homes "could accept individuals only if they could safely accommodate them in the group home"  and that people "who could not be safely accommodated either remained at the hospital or were served in one of the over 100 temporary sites established for COVID-19 recovery efforts in partnership with OPWDD provider agencies."

New York state senators have also called for an investigation into the group home directive, and Democratic Senate Investigations Committee Chairman James Skoufis told the Post this week that the probe could become a reality.

Fox News' Vandana Rambaran contributed to this report.

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