New York Attorney General Letitia James is now empowered to begin an investigation into claims of sexual harassment against Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The chief legal officer said in a press release on Monday that her office had received a referral letter from the governor’s office granting her the authority to conduct an independent investigation into the accusations levied by two former Cuomo staffers.
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“This is not a responsibility we take lightly as allegations of sexual harassment should always be taken seriously,” James, who is a Democrat, said. “As the letter states, at the close of the review, the findings will be disclosed in a public report.”
Beth Garvey, special counsel and senior adviser to the governor, wrote in the press release that all New York state employees were directed to “cooperate fully” with the review.
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On Sunday, the attorney general announced that she would be hiring an outside law firm to conduct the investigation in anticipation of receiving authorization from the governor, who has welcomed scrutiny amid his denials of any wrongdoing.
Two women have come forward to accuse Cuomo of sexual misconduct. Last Wednesday, Lindsey Boylan, who served in Cuomo’s administration from March 2015 to October 2018, detailed in a Medium post her allegations of how Cuomo sexually harassed her, claiming that he invited her to play strip poker and kissed her without her consent.
Days later, Charlotte Bennett, who was a health policy adviser and executive assistant to the governor, said Cuomo sexually harassed her at work, asking her questions 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 in an article published on Saturday.
Cuomo and his office have denied both women’s allegations, calling Boylan’s claims “quite simply false” and telling the newspaper that the governor intended to serve only as a mentor to Bennett.
“At work sometimes I think I am being playful and make jokes that I think are funny,” Cuomo said in a Sunday statement. “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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Cuomo, who has received 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, said in 2019 that he would seek a fourth term as governor of New York in the state’s 2022 election.
