A third woman is now accusing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of unwanted sexual advances, alleging that he touched her in a way that made her feel uncomfortable.
Anna Ruch says that at a wedding in September 2019, Cuomo acted inappropriately toward her, according to a Monday report from the New York Times. With each new allegation, outcry against the Democratic governor grows. The New York attorney general announced on Monday that a special counsel will be appointed to investigate the claims.
Ruch, who is now 33, said Cuomo was making the rounds at the wedding when he came up to her and put his hand on her bare lower back. When she removed his hand, he allegedly called her “aggressive” and put his hands on her cheeks. Ruch says he asked if he could kiss her, and she pulled away in shock.
A photo of the pair shows Cuomo, now 63, with his hands on her cheeks.
NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL AUTHORIZED TO BEGIN INVESTIGATION INTO CUOMO SEXUAL HARASSMENT CLAIMS
“I was so confused and shocked and embarrassed,” she said. “I turned my head away and didn’t have words in that moment.”
Ruch is the third woman to accuse Cuomo of inappropriate advances of a sexual nature.
Lindsey Boylan, who served in the governor’s administration from March 2015 to October 2018, in a Wednesday Medium post, accused the governor of kissing her without her consent and inviting her to play strip poker.
On Saturday, Charlotte Bennett, who was a health policy adviser and executive assistant to the governor, accused him of asking her questions that made her feel uncomfortable, such as how she felt about age differences in relationships and remarking that he wouldn’t mind dating a woman in her 20s.
“I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared, and [I] was wondering how I was going to get out of it and assumed it was the end of my job,” she told the New York Times.
When asked about the new allegations, rather than releasing a new statement, a spokesman for the governor referred the New York Times to a statement Cuomo made on Sunday.
“At work sometimes I think I am being playful and make jokes that I think are funny,” Cuomo said. “I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that.”
He added that he “never inappropriately touched anybody and [he] never propositioned anybody, and [he] never intended to make anyone feel uncomfortable.”
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In a statement on Wednesday, Cuomo’s office said that Boylan’s “claims of inappropriate behavior” were “quite simply false.”
Cuomo’s office did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment on the new allegations.
The governor is facing bipartisan backlash for the scandal as well as the fallout from his March 2020 executive order directing COVID-19-positive patients to be admitted into nursing homes, for which he is under federal investigation. Cuomo said in 2019 that he would seek a fourth term as governor of New York in the state’s 2022 election.
