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At the height of the pandemic, the CEO of New York’s blood bank personally offered a coronavirus-stricken Chris Cuomo special access to an experimental therapy — virtually unobtainable by anyone unrelated to then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, emails reveal.
The half-billion-dollar New York Blood Center’s boss, Chris Hillyer, offered “convalescent plasma” to the then-governor’s CNN host brother Chris Cuomo, on April 17, 2020.
“Should the Cuomo family elect to take Dr. Hillyer up on his offer, his cell number is [redacted],” Mary Ann Tighe — a real-estate mogul who acted as a go-between — wrote, according to emails obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information Law request.
During the pandemic’s early days, when no therapeutics or mRNA vaccines were available, scarce convalescent plasma — drawn from people recovered from COVID-19 and laden with potentially life-saving antibodies — was in high demand.
The then-CNN host asked his brother’s right-hand aide, Melissa DeRosa, who passed on Tighe’s note: “What is that?”
“Someone’s blood who already had COVID — experimental treatment…” she responded.
“Sounds spooky,” Chris Cuomo, 51, wrote.
“Yes but, hey, far be it for me to hold back an offer of someone’s blood…” she deadpanned.
Chris Cuomo, 51 — who wasn’t above taking priority COVID-test house calls from a top state doctor in March 2020, when regular New Yorkers couldn’t get tested for love or money — rejected the blood delivery.
“I dont want to try something that extreme when I Am not dying,” he wrote. “But thanks.”
The New York Blood Center takes in hundreds of millions of dollars pear year. Hillyer, who made $1.8 million in 2019, didn’t return a request for comment. The center did not provide more recent tax filings to The Post.
Not two weeks before the center offered to deliver plasma straight to the Cuomo family, a New York City teacher died of COVID-19 — after his family fought and failed to secure the experimental therapy.
“It’s shocking if the Blood Center was offering convalescent therapy to the most powerful New Yorkers. … I wonder who else got this special therapy,” said former city councilman Ben Kallos, who unsuccessfully fought the center’s controversial Upper East Side rezoning.
“The Blood Center rezoning was supposed to benefit every New Yorker. I certainly hope the Blood Center isn’t offering better treatment to the most powerful.”
The Blood Center-exchange was included in 147 pages of emails between Chris Cuomo and the Executive Chamber spanning 2020 and 2021 and released under a FOIL request. The missives also shed new light on Chris Cuomo’s work behind the scenes to salvage the reputation of his brother, former governor Andrew Cuomo, amid multiple scandals.
In March 2021, Chris Cuomo advised Executive Chamber staff as they planned a response to an article on the unfolding nursing-home COVID-19 death scandal.
“For this to be effective the … caption must may say something abt times being wrong or being misleading … Then say why … Say you werent given time to respond,” he wrote.
The broadcast journalist was copied on hundreds of emails between government workers and outside advisors — even ones as mundane as making grammatical changes to draft statements.
In another March 2021 exchange, he wrote his brother’s governmental communications advisors Rich Azzopardi and Peter Ajemian as they workshopped a statement shooting down rumors of a personal relationship between Andrew Cuomo and top lieutenant Melissa DeRosa.
“I need the basic facts on the upside for us to argue on these stories … Asap … Who can help?” Chris Cuomo wrote. It isn’t clear with whom Cuomo planned to “argue.”
In another thread, dating to Feb. 2021, Chris appears to edit a statement from Andrew Cuomo, 64, about his “playful” office interactions.
Cuomo was also included on deliberations over media inquiries, including from the New York Times, Washington Post, and Daily Mail.
The famously email-averse Andrew Cuomo — known to prefer encrypted Blackberry messages and who purged state emails — doesn’t appear in released material.
Chris was fired by CNN in December 2021 after an internal probe alleged he had attacked a female ABC News employee when he was at that network years earlier. The unnamed woman alleged that he denied his proposition for sex during a “lunch” in his office.
The accusation was made to CNN lawyers in December hours after Cuomo was suspended for advising his brother on how to dodge his own sexual harassment accusations.
CNN declined to comment on the emails.
Reps for Chris and Andrew Cuomo didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A rep for Tighe referred The Post to the Blood Center.
Blood Center chief medical officer, Bruce Sachais, said in a statement that ignored the apparent preferential treatment afforded Cuomo: “In the spring of 2020, New York Blood Center became the first to collect COVID-19 convalescent plasma and New Yorkers turned out in droves for their neighbors. We were able to collect 10K donations within the first month, which allowed hospitals to start offering the treatment to more patients. This outreach was part of a larger effort to get the new treatment to sick patients and spread the word about the need for recovered patients to donate plasma.”
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