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ALBANY — Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro is requesting that the US Department of Justice launch an investigation into the Cuomo administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in group homes that house New Yorkers living with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Molinaro wrote a letter Thursday to US Attorney General Merrick Garland and copied the entire New York congressional delegation, begging them to probe state policies that may have contributed to higher COVID-19 infection rates and death tolls among this population.

The report, jointly published by Disability Rights New York, the New York Civil Liberties Union and New York Lawyers for Public Interest and released March 5, found that “people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in group homes are three times more likely to contract COVID-19 and three times more likely to die from it” when compared to infection and death data tied to the general population. 

Over 550 individuals in these facilities have died of the virus and upward of 6,900 residents in over 34,552 facilities have contracted COVID-19, according to data from the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities.

The study also found a lack of timely effective and practical guidance regarding infection control, disparities in access to adequate personal protective equipment and a failure to institute standard virus testing protocol for facility residents and staff members they were in contact with.

“This is all too typical of a state that routinely treats the [intellectually and developmentally disabled] population as second class citizens,” wrote Molinaro.

“The many failures uncovered by this report, which are far more numerous than those mentioned here, when paired with the state’s policy of having COVID-19 positive patients sent back to facilities with little capacity to safely isolate these individuals, paint a dark picture of New York’s failure to protect this vulnerable population.”

The agency also implemented a directive on April 10, 2020, that barred group homes from denying resident admission “based solely on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.”

The policy is similar to a controversial state Health Department guidance issued last March 25, 2020, that barred nursing homes from refusing admission to COVID-19-positive residents and also barred testing of these individuals. 

“I ask that your office carefully review the failures highlighted in this report and immediately conduct a comprehensive investigation of New York state’s failure to protect [intellectually and developmentally disabled] individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Molinaro added.

“A society should be judged by how they treat their most vulnerable and I say with great sadness that at this moment our society, New York State, would be judged harshly.”

Meanwhile, state lawmakers have voiced support for launching their own investigation into the Cuomo administration’s policies. State Senate Investigations Committee Chairman James Skoufis (D-Orange) said he will discuss the topic with other committee chairs and look into holding hearings.

Neither a DOJ representative nor Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office was available for immediate comment.