‘Completely Violated’: Cuomo Accusers Detail Sexual Advances, Retaliation In Extensive AG Report, Interviews

A New York Attorney General report released Tuesday chronicles complaints against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo from 11 women including a sheriff’s deputy who served on Cuomo’s own security detail.

Cuomo denied the behavior in his own public statement on Tuesday afternoon, claiming that investigation is “biased” and that he “never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances.” He added that his accusers misunderstood his physical touches and “read into comments that I made and draw inferences that I never meant.”

“They heard things I just didn’t say,” Cuomo insisted.

The AG’s report, however, found that “Cuomo harassed multiple women, many of whom were young women, by engaging in unwanted groping, kisses, hugging, and by making inappropriate comments,” according to Attorney General Leticia James. The behavior showed a “pattern,” the investigators said, they “found all 11 women to be credible.”

“There was corroboration to various degrees,” investigators said.

The report’s details are shocking.

Most of the accusers chose to remain anonymous but the nine individuals employed by the State of New York are identified by their position within the administration, including one “executive assistant” who accused Cuomo of “aggressive” groping.

That portion of the report verifies a claim made to the Albany Times-Union back in March.

https://twitter.com/ShelbyTalcott/status/1422580863498346508

The same executive assistant also says that the governor grabbed her bottom on two separate occasions.

pic.twitter.com/wr2FAJJTcS

— Jacob Gershman (@jacobgershman) August 3, 2021

“The direct contact with intimate body parts—including the touching of Executive Assistant #1’s breast, the grabbing and touching of the butts of various women…—unquestionably amounted to sexual harassment,” the Attorney General’s report noted.

A state trooper assigned to Cuomo’s detail described being asked by the governor to help him find a new girlfriend who “can handle pain.”

Cuomo asked female State Trooper on his protective detail to help him find a girlfriend. One of his criteria? Someone who “can handle pain.” pic.twitter.com/Svh4t7mxDB

— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) August 3, 2021

The trooper also reported that Cuomo touched her inappropriately.

The women who complained also said that Cuomo’s workplace “culture” fostered the governor’s behavior and ultimately silenced his accusers.

“The complainants also described how the culture within the Executive Chamber—rife with fear and intimidation and accompanied by a consistent overlooking of inappropriate flirtations and other sexually suggestive and gender-based comments by the Governor—enabled the above-described instances of harassment to occur and created a hostile work environment overall,” the report said.

In some cases, staff sought to write off Cuomo’s behavior using the same excuse the governor himself used in his statement on Tuesday: that his behavior is “cultural” and that he is “old fashioned.”

"[T]he Governor (and certain of his senior staff) sought to downplay what the evidence has revealed as frequent gender-based comments and conduct by the Governor as simply 'old fashioned' or 'cultural.'" pic.twitter.com/vwIutWZWh3

— Jacob Gershman (@jacobgershman) August 3, 2021

Cuomo is not just accused of sexual harassment, however — he’s accused of a range of “humiliating” behaviors, including giving staffers nicknames designed to intimidate them.

“After Kaitlin joined the Executive Chamber, the Governor instructed her to act like a ‘sponge’ to soak up knowledge and then proceeded to call her by the name ‘sponge,’ a name that she found humiliating,” the report read.

Investigators say the issues with harassment were endemic.

“These were not isolated incidents. They were a pattern. The governor’s pattern of sexually harassing behavior was not limited to members of his own staff but extended to other state employees, including state trooper,” one attorney assigned to the case told media.