by Melissa Klein and Susan Edelman
If the Department of Justice investigates the Cuomo Administration’s refusal to turn over data on nursing home deaths, a huge conflict would arise if the case were handed to the powerful Manhattan federal prosecutor.
That’s because Audrey Strauss, the US Attorney for the Southern District, is the mother-in-law of top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa, the figure at the center of the emerging scandal.
The clamor demanding a probe into the cover-up of thousands of deaths have intensified after The Post reported DeRosa’s stunning admission that the Cuomo administration withheld the information from state lawmakers over the summer because it was worried federal prosecutors would “use it against us.”
The Justice Department in late August had begun an inquiry into nursing home deaths in New York and elsewhere.
“And basically, we froze,” DeRosa, who is secretary to the governor and his closest confidante, admitted to state lawmakers on a conference call.
“We weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice or what we give to you guys and what we start saying was going to be used against us and we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation,” she told lawmakers on a conference call Wednesday…
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