Gov. Cuomo was exposed in a blockbuster investigative report made public Tuesday as a dirty old man who used his powerful position to sexually harass female underlings less than half his age — including by touching their “intimate body parts” without consent.
A mountain of evidence also revealed that Cuomo and his team retaliated against at least one victim and created a “toxic” and hostile work environment for women in the Executive Chamber, officials alleged, saying his on-the-job lechery violated multiple federal and state laws.
Attorney General Letitia James said an “independent and thorough” probe she commissioned in March showed Cuomo had engaged in “unwanted groping, kissing, hugging and making inappropriate comments.”
“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,” she said.
“This investigation has revealed conduct that corrodes the very fabric and character of our state government and shines light on injustice that can be present at the highest levels of government.”
The AG’s probe involved accusations that Cuomo, 63, sexually harassed several current and former female staffers, most of whom are in their 20s or 30s, as well as other women outside government.
James called it “a sad day for New York” and said it was up to Cuomo to decide whether he’ll heed the demands of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and resign from office in disgrace.
With the five-month investigation complete, James also said that “our work is concluded” and that “the matter is civil in nature and does not have any criminal consequences.”
But one of the lawyers James hired to lead the probe, Anne Clark, noted that the Albany Police Department had already been notified by Cuomo’s office about an accusation that he groped a female aide in his Executive Mansion in Albany last year.
That allegation is the most serious made against Cuomo but it’s unclear if the accuser has cooperated with cops.
Clark also said the alleged victims were all free to file civil suits against Cuomo.
James — who said 179 witnesses were interviewed, including Cuomo — released a 168-page report, with three appendices containing more than 450 pages of exhibits that include hand-written notes, emails and text messages documenting the governor’s alleged misbehavior.
“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,” she said.
“This investigation has revealed conduct that corrodes the very fabric and character of our state government and shines light on injustice that can be present at the highest levels of government.”
James said she was “inspired by all the brave women who came forward: with allegations against Cuomo.
“But more importantly, I believe them,” she added.
Cuomo responded about an hour later with a defiant video statement in which he repeated his assertion that he’s “never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances” and suggested he was the victim of a smear campaign.
Cuomo is the father of three grown daughters with ex-wife Kerry Kennedy and in 2019 broke up with his live-in girlfriend, celebrity chef Sandra Lee, after a 14-year relationship.
The sex harassment scandal is also part of a wide-ranging impeachment investigation by the state Assembly’s Judiciary Committee and Cuomo is under investigation by the FBI and the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office for his handling of nursing homes amid COVID-19 pandemic, including the cover-up of total resident deaths from the disease.
The AG’s probe involved accusations that Cuomo, 63, sexually harassed several current and former female staffers, most of whom are in their 20s or 30s, as well as other women outside government.
Clark said the investigation revealed that Cuomo “regularly made comments to staff members and state employees that were offensive and gender-based” and also “engaged in a widespread pattern of subjecting women to unwanted hugs and kisses and touching them in ways that made them uncomfortable.”
“That is not just old-fashioned affectionate behavior, as he and some of his staff members would have it, but unlawful sex-based harassment,” she said.
Investigators interviewed and gathered evidence from 11 women, nine of whom are or were state employees, said former acting Manhattan US Attorney Joon Kim, the other outside lawyer who led the probe.
Kim revealed that one alleged victim is a state trooper who served on Cuomo’s security detail and Clark said that Cuomo touched her inappropriately “several times.”
“In an elevator, while standing behind the trooper, he ran his finger from her neck down her spine and said, ‘Hey, you,'” Clark said.
“Another time, she was standing holding the door open for the governor. As he passed, he took his open hand and ran it across her stomach from her belly button to where the hip where she keeps her gun.”
Clark added: “She told us that she felt completely violated to have the governor touch her, as she put it, between her chest and her privates.”
Clark also said that after Cuomo, a three-term Democrat, “had become single, he asked the trooper how old she was.”
“When she responded that she was in her late 20s, he said that’s too old for him. He then asked her how much of an age difference he thought he could have between him and a girlfriend and have the public still accept it.” Clark said.
After telling Cuomo that “it might be a good idea to stick with women at least as old as your daughters,” Clark said, the trooper “tried to deflect the conversation by asking the governor what he was looking for in a girlfriend,”
“He responded that he was looking for somebody who could handle pain,” Clark said.
“Another time, when the governor found out that the trooper was engaged, he asked her why she wanted to get married because, among other things, your sex drive goes down.”
In a written statement, the head of the troopers union, Thomas Mungeer, said, “I’m outraged and disgusted that one of my members, who was tasked with guarding the governor and ensuring his safety, could not enjoy the same sense of security in her work environment that he was provided.”
Clark said the woman who has accused Cuomo of groping her had “endured repeated physical violations” before that alleged incident on Nov. 16 inside the Executive Mansion in Albany, where she told investigators that Cuomo “reached under her blouse to grab her breast.”
“This was the culmination of a pattern of inappropriate sexual conduct, including numerous close and intimate hugs, where the governor held her so closely that her breasts were pressed against his body, and he sometimes ran his hands up and down his her back while he did so,” Clark said.
“There were also several occasions on which the governor grabbed her butt.”
The unidentified woman “had vowed that she was going to take these violations, as she put it, to the grave,” Clark said.
“She was terrified that if she spoke out, she would lose her job. But she broke down in front of colleagues when she heard the governor on March 3, 2021, in his press conference, claim that he had never touched anyone inappropriately,” Clark said.
“She then confided in her coworkers who saw her break down as to what had happened, and they were the ones that reported the conduct to attorneys in the executive chamber.”
In addition to state employees, Clark said, Cuomo “also inappropriately touched women who were attending work-related events, at which the governor made remarks.”
“At one event in September 2019, while having his picture taken with an employee of a state entity, the governor grabbed this young woman’s butt,” Clark said.
“At another event in May of 2017, the governor pressed and ran his fingers across the chest of a woman while reading the name of her company whose logo was on her chest.”
The report identified that woman as Virginia Limmiatis also said that during the alleged incident, Cuomo “leaned in, with his face close to Ms. Limmiatis’s cheek, and said, ‘I’m going to say I see a spider on your shoulder,’ before brushing his hand in the area between her shoulder and breasts (and below her collarbone).”
Limmiatis reached out to investigators after the news conference at which Cuomo denied touching anyone inappropriately and told them, “I am compelled to come forward to tell the truth.”
“I didn’t know how to report what he did to me at the time and was burdened by shame, but not coming forward now would make me complicit in his lie, and I won’t do it,” she added, according to the report.
Clark also said that Cuomo’s comments to then-aide Charlotte Bennett “crossed the line many times” and included “asking her for the details” after he learned that she’d been sexually assaulted in college.
“When talking about potential girlfriends, he said he thought he could date women as young as 22,” Clark said.
“Knowing that Ms. Bennett was 25 at the time, he asked her whether she had ever been with older men.”
Cuomo also told Bennett “that he was lonely and wanted to be touched” and “asked her if she was monogamous and what she thought about monogamy,” Clark said.
“He speculated on how her history as a sexual assault survivor might affect her romantic life,” she said.
“He told her that she looked like Daisy Duke he suggested that she get a tattoo she was contemplating on her butt and asked her if she had any piercings anywhere other than her ears.”
The comments were so upsetting that Bennett texted a friend that she was shaking afterward, Clark said.
When Bennett told Cuomo’s then-chief of staff, Jill DesRosiers, in June 2020 that she no longer felt comfortable interacting with the governor, DesRosiers relayed her complaints to other members of his “inner circle” and Bennett was transferred “within days,” Clark said.
After DesRosiers and Cuomo’s special counsel, Judith Mogul, spoke with Bennett and learned about alleged incidents dating to May 2019, Des Rosiers consulted with Mogul and top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa, Clark said.
“They decided they did not need to report this to the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations, GOER, or conduct any meaningful investigation,” Clark said.
“They simply moved Ms. Bennett and instituted a policy of not having a junior staffer be alone with the governor.”
Clark added: “That response we find was a violation of the executive chambers harassment policy, which clearly requires that all possible harassment be reported to GOER and investigated.”
Last week, it was revealed that Mogul was leaving her job, with Cuomo’s spokesman claiming that she “had previously planned to leave government in spring of 2020” but remained on the job ” to help manage the pandemic.”
Bennett, who detailed her allegations against Cuomo in an extensive interview with CBS News, responded to the conclusion of the probe by tweeting, “Resign, @NYGovCuomo.”
Clark said Cuomo’s office “once again failed” to report allegations against him when former aide Lindsey Boylan tweeted in December that he’d sexually harassed her.
Instead, Clark said, “a team of senior staffers, former staffers, and outside confidantes with no official title or role mobilized to attack and try to neutralize Ms. Boylan by sharing disparaging information with the press.”
“There was also a proposed letter or op-ed drafted by the governor that went through several drafts, further attacked Miss Boylan for alleged conduct at work for alleged conduct with men other than the governor, as well as postulating various political conspiracies, including that Miss Boylan was funded by far-right Republicans and supporters of [then-outgoing President] Donald Trump,” Clark said.
“He was finally convinced to abandon it by a number of people who thought the letter was a bad idea, in part, because what was in the letter couldn’t be substantiated and because they thought that victim-shaming would be bad as a strategy.”
Clark said that under federal and state law, the release of internal records related to Boylan and the “dissemination of the letter” about her “constituted unlawful retaliation.”
Kim also said that two women described a work event where a staffer sat on Cuomo’s lap and that another recalled him kissing her on the lips.
One woman described her interactions with Cuomo as “strange and uncomfortable” and “like ‘The Twilight Zone,” saying that “Typical rules do not apply, you should view it as a compliment,” Kim said.
“Another complainant testified and I quote, ‘What makes it so hard to describe every single inappropriate incident is the culture of the place. On the one hand, he makes all this inappropriate and creepy behavior normal, and, like, you should not complain,'” Kim said.
“‘On the other hand, you see people getting punished and screamed at for anything if you disagree with him or his top aides.'”
When Cuomo was interviewed under oath, Kim said, he “testified that those things may have happened with senior staffers.”
At several points during the July 17 session — which was recorded on video — Cuomo angrily confronted Kim over his role in previous federal investigations of the governor and his allies, the New York Times reported Monday.
Last week, several lawyers involved in the investigation also toured the Executive Mansion and Cuomo’s offices in the state Capitol, where the alleged harassment is said to have taken place, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing two people familiar with the inquiry.
