A former major mob boss ripped into former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over his actions in the nursing home scandal in which thousands of New Yorkers died from COVID-19, snapping, “I’m a bad***. I’d never do it.”
As part of a series called “The Mafia States of America,” Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, who used to help run the Gambino crime family in New York City, told host and moderator Patrick Bet-David, “I hate to get into Governor Cuomo. I will a little bit because he’s Italian and I can’t stand it,” as Fox News reported.
“One, because he’s Italian and I’m embarrassed to have someone do what he did as an Italian,” he continued. “He killed 15,000 people by putting people with the coronavirus in [nursing homes] with old people. … I don’t give a f*** who tells me to do that, whether it’s Trump, the president, the vice president, you, him (referring to fellow interviewee and former Colombo caporegime Michael Franzese), I would never do it. And I’m a bad***. I’d never do it.”
“Gravano also said that when an individual does something like the former governor’s scandal and has ‘no concern,’ he thinks about his family, including his ‘great-grandchildren who aren’t even born” that are “going to deal with s— like this,” Fox News stated.
The series’ director Gerard Michaels told Fox News that Cuomo did not respond when they asked for comment on the show. He declared, “They were silent. Any of our emails were never responded to. And every time we tried to make a phone call, all they did was push to another department, who then tried to push us to another department, who tried to push us to another department, who then tried to push us to another department.”
Bet-David chimed in regarding Gravano and Franzese, “Their biggest challenge with this is that the moment you’re a politician, you are held to much different standards than they did. Now, don’t get me wrong – obviously a Rudy Giulliani is necessary to help clean the streets of New York so families don’t have to worry about the safety of their kids while they’re out there playing. But I would say that’s the position that Sammy and Michael would take: that they think many politicians like the Cuomos get away with murder, which is essentially what happened.”
Fox News noted in June 2020 that over 6,200 elderly residents might have died from COVID-19 in New York nursing homes according to state health department statistics. Months prior, on March 25, 2020, the New York Department of Health issued an advisory that stated nursing homes had to accept residents returning from hospitals whether or not they had a diagnosis of COVID-19. The advisory stated:
During this global health emergency, all NHs must comply with the expedited receipt of residents returning from hospitals to NHs. Residents are deemed appropriate for return to a NH upon a determination by the hospital physician or designee that the resident is medically stable for return. Hospital discharge planners must confirm to the NH, by telephone, that the resident is medically stable for discharge. Comprehensive discharge instructions must be provided by the hospital prior to the transport of a resident to the NH.
No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.
The Daily Wire reported on May 10, 2020, that a report from New York state authorities showed that “at least 4,813 residents with confirmed or presumed cases of COVID-19 have died at 351 of New York’s 613 nursing homes since March 1, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration’s new list,” according to Time Magazine.