NEW YORK, NY July 30, 2009 —A new report from the New York Attorney General's office shows that several troubled banks gave out big bonuses last year, even as they were bleeding money and taking taxpayer funds. WNYC's Lisa Chow reports.

REPORTER: The state attorney general Andrew Cuomo had one clear message. There was no relationship between pay and performance last year. Cited in Cuomo's report, Citigroup paid out $5 billion in bonuses even as it suffered nearly $28 billion in losses and received $45 billion in taxpayer assistance.

And Bank of America paid the same level of compensation and benefits to employees in 2008, after the financial crisis hit, that it did in 2006, a boom year.

Cuomo says, it wasn't performance that drove bonuses, it was fear; The banks' fearing that employees would leave for their competition. For WNYC, I'm Lisa Chow.