A State Supreme Courtroom choose dominated that Melissa DeRosa, who served as a senior aide to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, will not be entitled to greater than $700,000 in tax {dollars} for authorized charges she racked up after a state trooper’s retaliation declare in opposition to her had already been dismissed.
DeRosa was dropped as a defendant within the trooper’s civil sexual harassment go well with in opposition to the previous Governor again in Sept. 2023. By then, New York state taxpayers had already spent a complete of just about $1.1 million defending DeRosa within the case, in response to the state comptroller’s workplace.
Whereas New York State legislation entitles public officers sued of their official authorities capability to a tax-funded authorized protection when preapproved by the state legal professional normal, Decide Danielle Jose-Decker dominated Tuesday that the state comptroller’s workplace was proper when it refused to pay DeRosa’s more moderen authorized payments.
DeRosa sued the comptroller’s workplace in December after it rejected her reimbursement request for authorized providers offered as late as April 2025 — 19 months after she was dropped from the Trooper 1 case. She and her attorneys on the agency Morvillo Abramowitz billed the state for a median 23 days per 30 days over that 19-month time interval.
“In an effort to qualify for cost of authorized charges underneath Public Officers Legislation 17, Petitioner DeRosa must be engaged within the civil go well with,” the choose stated in her ruling.
Decide Jose-Decker famous Derosa had chosen to not step away from the Trooper 1 court docket battle, citing “no necessity for her to proceed to actively take part within the litigation.”
DeRosa has remained an in depth, devoted Cuomo affiliate within the years since he resigned as governor in 2021. Her battle to voluntarily stay concerned within the Trooper 1 court docket battle continued as the previous governor waged his high-stakes, finally unsuccessful 2025 marketing campaign for mayor, ending up earlier than Federal Decide Taryn Merkl who issued a protecting order final July, shutting out DeRosa and another non-parties to the case.
Decide Merkl sided with the trooper who argued that granting DeRosa and her attorneys permission they sought to attend delicate and private depositions, together with of the trooper’s medical and psychological well being suppliers, would seemingly trigger embarrassment, oppression or undue expense. The choose indicated she remained open to non-parties attending proceedings if the opposite events didn’t object.
In a press release, Melissa DeRosa’s legal professional Catherine Foti stated they might enchantment the ruling. Foti stated DeRosa was a public servant “sued baselessly and dragged by way of litigation for years” on account of the 2021 investigation by Legal professional Basic Letitia James. Foti known as the investigation “fatally flawed.”
The AG’s investigation concluded that Cuomo had harassed 11 girls — together with “by way of unwelcome and undesirable touching, in addition to by making quite a few offensive and sexually suggestive feedback.” The report additionally concluded the manager chamber had engaged in retaliation.
“Ms. DeRosa was rightly dismissed from Trooper #1’s blatant try at a cash seize,” Foti stated. “However the Courtroom’s choice will not be in step with the legislation or previous precedent — we look ahead to this choice being overturned on enchantment.”
The comptroller’s workplace additionally rejected DeRosa’s request for authorized charges she incurred combating a separate 2024 lawsuit the trooper filed in opposition to her and Cuomo in New York State Supreme Courtroom alleging DeRosa had violated native Human Rights Legislation by accusing the trooper of extortion and threatening to sue her over her harassment claims.
In a Sept. 2025 letter to DeRosa’s lawyer, the comptroller’s workplace reminded DeRosa that the legal professional normal had already declined to preapprove her request for a tax-funded protection in that human rights case and that Derosa had solely been entitled to state reimbursement for the federal trooper case, from which she had been dropped two years prior.
Basic Counsel Michael Kogut, the comptroller’s high legal professional, steered DeRosa was “making an attempt to bootstrap her protection onto a totally separate federal matter, a lot much less one to which she is not social gathering.”
Trooper 1 — a member of the previous governor’s safety element — stated Cuomo made her really feel violated along with his conduct whereas she was on responsibility. She stated he ran his finger down her again in an elevator, and on a distinct event, moved the palm of his hand throughout her stomach to her hip the place she carried her gun.
“Lots of occasions, he tried to be flirtatious. Lots of occasions, it got here off creepy,” the trooper stated in her 2021 testimony in a transcript launched by the Workplace of the Legal professional Basic.
“I don’t recall doing it, but when she stated I did it, I consider her,” Cuomo stated in his 2021 resignation speech relating to the trooper’s allegations of undesirable touching.
In years since, Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing within the case and has typically known as the accusations “politically motivated.”
New York taxpayers have spent $24 million to this point defending Cuomo in three civil sexual harassment circumstances — together with $13 million within the Trooper 1 case alone.
