Cuomo accuser Charlotte Bennett is 'brave' and what happened to her 'unforgivable': Friends

When Charlotte Bennett was 12 years old, Gov. Andrew Cuomo moved into a home less than 5 miles from hers in Westchester County.

Cuomo, then the attorney general of New York, was raising his three daughters with his then-girlfriend Sandra Lee, the celebrity chef.

Their worlds even collided briefly: Bennett once played middle-school soccer with one of Cuomo’s daughters.

Now Bennett, 25, whom friends and neighbors describe as thoughtful, quiet and civic-minded, is among three women who have publicly accused Cuomo of sexual harassment.

In interviews with CBS’ Norah O’Donnell and the New York Times, Bennett, who worked in the Cuomo administration, much of her time as an aide, detailed multiple instances in which the governor, who is 63, allegedly made inappropriate comments. He asked Bennett, a victim of sexual assault, if her experience had impacted her sex life, she said. He allegedly told Bennett he was comfortable dating 22-year-olds, and was looking for a girlfriend. And, she said, he asked her about her sexual relationships.

"Some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation," Cuomo said in a statement on Sunday, adding, "To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that."

Bennett is the second of three accusers. Lindsey Boylan, Cuomo's former deputy secretary of economic development and special adviser, wrote a 1,700-word post on the website Medium in February in which she said she was subjected to unwanted advances by Cuomo during her nearly two years working for the administration. The third accuser is Anna Ruch, who said Cuomo made an unwanted advance at a New York City wedding in September 2019, placing his hand on her bare lower back. When she removed his hand, she said, Cuomo grabbed her face with both hands and asked if he could kiss her.

Bennett grew up in Katonah, an affluent hamlet in northern Westchester with a charming downtown dotted with colorful Victorian homes. The hamlet is home to celebrities such as Martha Stewart, and Bedford, the town that Katonah is part of, is home to Cuomo’s former wife, Kerry Kennedy, as well as other members of the Kennedy clan.

It is a solidly Democratic town.

Most people who know the Bennett family declined to speak on the record , but they described the family as very private, and said that both Charlotte and her mother had campaigned for local Democratic candidates.

Westchester County Legislator Kitley Covill was one of them. When she ran for her seat in 2017, both mother and daughter campaigned on her behalf. She described Bennett as a friend.

“She is a smart, talented person who worked hard as a New York state employee in an important position,” said Covill.

Friends from Katonah say she was public-service minded from a young age. She volunteered on the Katonah Bedford Ambulance Corp when she was a student at John Jay High School.

After graduating high school in 2013, Bennett attended Hamilton College in Clinton, graduating with a degree in Women’s Studies in 2017, according to her LinkedIn page. In July 2016, the summer before her senior year, she was praised in an article on the college website about her work as a policy intern for a non-profit that provided legal services for sexual violence survivors.

In the article, Bennett mentions she herself is a survivor, which was in part what motivated her, she said.

“ … [M]y own personal experiences have led me to a place where I believe this kind of advocacy work is especially important,” she is quoted as saying.

Bennett would go on to found and direct the Sexual Misconduct and Assault Reform Task-Force, a group designed to address sexual assault and its surrounding culture on campus; and its subgroup, Policy Advisors for Sexual Assault, created to train students to help survivors.

Katherine Barnes, who graduated from Hamilton College in 2020 with a bachelor's in Women and Gender Studies, described herself as a close friend and former classmate of Bennett's. She said the creation of SMART had a lasting impact on campus.

"Charlotte's bravery and strength ... has helped inspire myself and my peers to continue her work after she graduated," she said. "I am so proud that Charlotte's bravery has continued beyond Hamilton College."

In addition, SMART released a statement saying: "As an organization, we are sending all of our love and support to Charlotte during this time and we call for the state of New York to hold Mr. Cuomo accountable for his actions."

But around the time Bennett was organizing these groups, Hamilton College was only a few years out from a federal Department of Education investigation for possibly mishandling a sexual violence case.

The investigation stemmed from a Title IX complaint. Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in education programs and activities, and can include sexual harassment or sexual violence, such as rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, and sexual coercion.

A complaint was filed in 2014, but the identity of the person who filed the complaint is not a matter of public record.

The complaint, which was filed when Bennett would have been a sophomore at college, and an appeal /grievance hearing on an incident was convened in November 2013 – when Bennett would have been a freshman – alleged that the college had “failed to respond promptly and equitably to complaints of sexual violence of which it had notice…as well as complaints of harassment/retaliation following her complaints of sexual assault; and, as a result, she and other students were subjected to a sexually hostile environment.”

The complaint also alleged that the complainant’s advisor had been directed to shred records pertaining to an appeal/grievance hearing convened in November 2013, regarding her report of sexual assault.

It is unclear if the case has been resolved. While a U.S. Department of Education press officer acknowledged emails from lohud/ The Journal News asking about the case, she did not get back with answers as to whether the case had been resolved.

Neither Bennett’s attorney, Deborah Katz, nor her spokesperson, Caitlin Legacki, responded to questions regarding a Title IX case.

Barnes said she, along with Bennett and several other students at Hamilton College, worked together to create the organization SMART to ensure Title IX investigations were fair and that survivors of sexual assault on campus felt supported and heard. 

Between 2008 and 2013, there were 25 sex offenses reported on Hamilton’s campus, including seven in 2012 and three in 2013, according to state data.

According to Hamilton's website, there are 1,850 enrolled students. Roberts Wesleyan in Chili, New York, which reported having 1,786 students in fall 2019, had no sexual assaults recorded during that same period of 2008-2013. Union College, in Schenectady, reporting 2,050 students enrolled on its website, had eight cases reported in that time frame.

Hamilton was, like many campuses at the time, responding to new scrutiny about how sexual assault cases were handled at colleges. In response to federal guidance issued to all colleges and universities in spring 2014, it implemented a revised sexual misconduct policy the following fall. The federal investigation also followed a new uniform sexual assault prevention and response policy for issued for all State University of New York campuses.

In 2014, Bennett started volunteering at Hope’s Door, a Pleasantville-based women’s shelter that caters to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, the first of many such organizations she would eventually dedicate her efforts toward in the years to follow. CarlLa Horton, the executive director of Hope’s Door, said while she can confirm that Bennett had volunteered with them, she couldn’t talk about specifics without the written consent of Bennett.

Although Bennett spent less than two years in Cuomo’s office, she was highly respected and well-liked during her time there.

More than a dozen Cuomo aides and advisers who spoke to the USA TODAY Network New York offered universal praise. Over and over, they spoke positively about her work ethic, her enthusiasm and, above all, her dedication to public service as a force for good.

She began working as a briefer in Cuomo's office in 2019. The quality of her work was immediately clear, sources said, and she was promoted to senior briefer and executive assistant by the end of the year.

Cuomo himself has praised Bennett's work ethic. In his statement Sunday, he called her a "hardworking and valued member of our team during COVID."

That Cuomo allegedly harassed Bennett – the young, hard worker with seemingly endless potential – has roiled Cuomo's staff.

At least seven aides and administration officials, most of them close in age to Bennett, have threatened to resign, asked for a transfer to another state agency or accelerated their previously planned departure since her story became public, according to three Cuomo aides and advisers. 

Covill, the Westchester County legislator, said the behavior Bennett described has no place in a work environment and calling it “unforgivable.”

“All employees expect respect and professionalism in the workplace and given the power dynamic in this case the behavior is unforgivable,” she said. “I am proud to stand with my friend and support her 100 percent.”

Staff writer Jon Campbell contributed to the story.

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy covers women and power for the USA Today Network Northeast.Click here for her latest stories. Follow her on Twitter at @SwapnaVenugopal or email her at svenugop@lohud.com