There’s not other way to describe the manner in which he made the AIG bonus recipients an offer they couldn’t refuse:
Employees of the American International Group may have been given an implicit ultimatum from Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York: Give back your bonuses and your names will not be made public.
Gerry Pasciucco, the head of A.I.G. financial products division, told employees that they needed to decide by 5 p.m. on Monday whether they would return the bonuses, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post and CNBC.
“Please be aware that we have received assurances from Attorney General Cuomo that no names will be released by his office before he completes a security review which is expected to take at least a week,” the memo said. “To the extent that we meet certain participation targets, it is not expected that the names would be released at all.”
(…)
And reversing a stand he took last week, Mr. Cuomo said he did not intend to release any names. “If the person returns the money, I don’t think there’s a public interest in releasing the names,” he told reporters.
Given the fact that it’s fairly clear that Cuomo had no real legal basis for demanding the money back, I don’t think it’s unfair to characterize his actions as one thing — blackmail.
