During a campaign stop in New York City on Friday, Republican candidate for governor of the Empire State, Lee Zeldin, called for an investigation into Governor Kathy Hochul’s apparently dodgy practices.
In 2021, Hochul’s administration signed a deal to buy 52 million Covid-19 Carestart tests for $637 million. At the same time, the state of California made a similar purchase, but paid 45 percent less than New York, according to the Albany Times union.
The report says the price increase was because Hochul went through a campaign donor’s company to facilitate the purchase. While California went right through the manufacturer, AccessBio.
The middleman company involved in the deal is called Digital Gadgets, which is based in northern New Jersey.
The company was founded in 2007 by Brooklyn-born Charlie Tebele. In this election cycle, Digital Gadgets has donated $300,000 to the governor’s campaign.
Republican candidate Lee Zeldin told media on Friday, “Kathy Hochul’s approach to this job is one of selling access in a way that even Andrew Cuomo would never think of. This crosses all kinds of lines. And it must be investigated’
The official line from Governor Kathy Hochul’s office is that the governor was unaware that Digital Gadgets was a campaign donor
Digital Gadget was founded in 2007 by Brooklyn native Charlie Tebele, pictured here
Zeldin, who is currently in the House of Representatives, is running against Hochul in the November general election and has the backing of Donald Trump.
His campaign made headlines last month when a man walked onto the stage at one of Zeldin’s events with supporters and tried to stab him. Zeldin was unharmed and his attacker was arrested.
Tebele, along with family members, donated $70,000 before the contract was awarded and then another $227,000 after the deal went through.
Zeldin told the media during a performance in Manhattan: “Kathy Hochul’s campaign receives $300,000 from a donor, and then they go around and circumvent New York’s competing bidding laws, and they end up agreeing to a contract over $600 million.” , paying more than double the going rate. ‘
Zeldin warned that it is not the first time Hochul has engaged in such behavior.
He said: ‘Kathy Hochul’s approach to this job is one of selling access in a way that even Andrew Cuomo would never think of. This crosses all kinds of lines. And it must be investigated.’
Zeldin added, “There are so many aspects of this $600 million COVID deal that I definitely wouldn’t have signed.”
The official line from Hochul’s office is that the governor was unaware that Digital Gadgets was a campaign donor when the contract was awarded.
Digital Gadgets said the higher price was due to the timing of the supplier deal, which came three weeks before the California deal.
Digital Gadgets offered to sell 26 million tests to New York State on December 20 at a rate of $13 per test, the deal was approved on December 21
Zeldin appears during the New York Republican government debate at the Spectrum News NY1 studios on June 20, 2022 in New York
The company said in a statement, through spokesman John Gallagher: “The company made nowhere near $286 million in profits and any suggestion to the contrary is misleading, deliberately ignoring the fact that Digital Gadgets paid more per unit for AccessBio testing than the state of California, because of the size and date of the order, risked hundreds of millions of dollars in capital costs to fulfill an order of this size, incurred millions of dollars in costs to charter planes and cover overtime for employees over Christmas and New Year, and then also had to meet the state’s later requirement that tests should have an extended expiration date, requiring additional material.”
Digital Gadgets offered to sell 26 million tests to New York State on December 20 at a rate of $13 per test, the deal was approved on December 21.
On January 4, an additional 26 million tests were ordered through Digital Gadgets.
Hochul’s conduct was also questioned by the minority leader of the state assembly, William Barclay.
The Republican from Oswego, New York, said in a statement: “This is negligence, incompetence or blatant corruption — maybe all three. It asks for answers anyway.”
He continued: ‘Where are the legislature’s investigative bodies? Where’s the Attorney General? The governor must be held accountable. The longer her political allies are silent, the more this looks like Democrats hiding it from one of them.”
The executive director of the government’s watchdog group Reinvent Albany, John Kaehny, told: the New York Post that his group expects a federal investigation into Hochul’s behavior.
He said, “Yeah, New York was in crisis, but so was the rest of the country, and other states and the federal government weren’t paying nearly what New York was doing for the same test.”
While the state’s minority leader, Robert Ortt, told the Post, “Even though she promised open and transparent governance, this apple didn’t fall far from the corrupt Cuomo tree.”
Senior fellow for health policy at the Empire Center for Public Policy Bill Hammond told the Times Union: “The price is just way off the chart, and we still haven’t heard anything close to a convincing explanation for why the price is so high.” was, and why the Hochul government not only accepted a price that was so high, but made it their primary supplier.”
He continued, “If the tests had been sold to another state at the same time — at a better price — New York should have been able to get a little closer to that price, even if the state picked up the last available tests.” ‘
Recently, Hochul has stepped up her attacks on Republicans, telling some to “go back to Florida.”
She also attacked DeSantis at an event marking the Holocaust by saying, “I just want to say to the 1.77 million Jews who are calling New York home: Thank you for calling New York home. Do not go anywhere or to any other state. Florida is overrated.”
New York is one of the Democratic states actively protecting abortion rights ahead of the pivotal midterm elections.