New York Gov. Cuomo denies sexual harassment allegations detailed in investigation findings
An investigation into Cuomo found he sexually harassed current and former state government employees. Cuomo has denied touching anyone inappropriately.
An investigation into New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo found that he sexually harassed multiple women inside and outside state government and worked to retaliate against one of his accusers, New York’s attorney general announced Tuesday in a finding that is certain to renew calls for the Democrat’s resignation or impeachment.
Cuomo remained defiant Tuesday following the investigation’s findings, saying that “the facts are much different than what has been portrayed” and appearing to reject calls to resign.
The nearly five-month investigation, conducted by two outside lawyers who spoke to 179 people, found that the Cuomo administration was a “hostile work environment” and that it was “rife with fear and intimidation.”
People interviewed included complainants, current and former members of the executive chamber, state troopers, additional state employees and others who interacted regularly with the governor.
“These interviews and pieces of evidence revealed a deeply disturbing yet clear picture: Gov. Cuomo sexually harassed current and former state employees in violation of federal and state laws,” New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James said at a news conference Tuesday.
James said her investigation had concluded. There were no referrals to criminal prosecutors, though that wouldn’t preclude local authorities from using the evidence and findings of the report to mount their own cases.
On at least one occasion, the investigation found, Cuomo and his senior staff worked to retaliate against a former employee who accused him of wrongdoing.
A lawyer for Gov. Andrew Cuomo said she reported a groping allegation to local police after the woman involved declined to press charges herself.
The report also detailed, for the first time, allegations that Cuomo sexually harassed a female state trooper on his security detail. It said that the governor ran his hand or fingers across her stomach and her back, kissed her on the cheek, asked for her help in finding a girlfriend and asked why she didn’t wear a dress.
“These brave women stepped forward to speak truth to power, and in doing so, they expressed faith in the belief that although the governor may be powerful, the truth is even more so,” Joon Kim, one of the lawyers leading the investigation, said at the news conference.
Investigators said they found the 11 women who alleged harassment were credible, noting that their allegations were corroborated to varying degrees, including by other witnesses and contemporaneous text messages.
Cuomo faced multiple allegations last winter that he inappropriately touched and sexually harassed women who worked with him or whom he met at public events. One aide in his office said he groped her breast.
Another, Lindsey Boylan, said Cuomo kissed her on the lips after a meeting in his office and “would go out of his way to touch me on my lower back, arms and legs.”
After Boylan first made her allegations public in December, the Cuomo administration undercut her story by releasing personnel memos to media outlets revealing that Boylan resigned after she was confronted about complaints that she had belittled and yelled at her staff.
Boylan has said those records “were leaked to the media in an effort to smear me.”
Saturday’s interview signals that investigators are nearly done with their work, which has also included interviews with Gov. Cuomo’s accusers.
Other aides have said that the Democratic governor asked them unwelcome personal questions about sex and dating. One former aide, Charlotte Bennett, said Cuomo asked if she was open to sex with an older man.
“Some suffered through unwanted touching, and grabbing of their most intimate body parts. Others suffered through repeated offensive, sexually suggestive, or gender-based comments,” Kim said Tuesday. “A number of them endured both. None of them welcomed it. And all of them found it disturbing, humiliating, uncomfortable and inappropriate.”
Last winter there was a chorus of calls for Cuomo’s resignation from many top elected Democrats in New York, including two U.S. senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. But Cuomo refused to quit, and has been raising money for a fourth term in office.
His position on the allegations also has hardened into one of defiance. Cuomo has always denied touching anyone inappropriately, but he initially said he was sorry if his behavior with women was “misinterpreted as unwanted flirtation.” In recent months, he’s taken a more combative tack, saying he did nothing wrong and questioning the motives of accusers and critics.
He also has questioned the neutrality of the lawyers hired by the attorney general to investigate the allegations. One of the attorneys, Joon Kim, was involved in previous investigations of corruption by people in Cuomo’s administration when he was a federal prosecutor in Manhattan. Cuomo hasn’t expressly said why he believes that would make Kim biased.
In the hours leading into James’ announcement, Cuomo’s office issued numerous news releases, including on the completion of mixed-use housing in Buffalo, plans to build a $3.9-billion terminal at Kennedy Airport, and JetBlue’s decision to keep its headquarters in New York. As James was speaking, Cuomo’s publicists sent out a release about reclaiming the sites of old power plants.
New York mayor says indoor dining and gyms will require vaccination proof, making it first major U.S. city to impose such rules.
The attorney general’s report is expected to play an important role in an ongoing inquiry in the New York state Assembly into whether there are grounds for Cuomo to be impeached.
The Assembly hired its own legal team to investigate Cuomo’s conduct, plus other allegations of wrongdoing. The Legislature is looking into the help Cuomo received from senior aides to write a book about the pandemic, special access that Cuomo relatives had to coronavirus testing last year, and the administration’s decision to withhold some data on nursing home deaths from the public for several months.
Some members of the judiciary committee have said they expect James’ report to be “critical” in the impeachment investigation.
New York state regulations say sexual harassment includes unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature — whether it’s unwanted flirtation or sexual jokes — that creates an offensive work environment, regardless of a perpetrator’s intent.
The governor, in contrast, has repeatedly argued that he did not intend to harass anyone. His office has said he took the state’s mandated sexual harassment training but has not provided documentation proving he did.
Cuomo championed a landmark 2019 state law that made it easier for sexual harassment victims to prove their case in court. Alleged victims no longer have to meet the high bar of proving sexual harassment is “severe and pervasive.”
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