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New York State Senate Majority Leader Says She Won’t Call For Andrew Cuomo To Resign Unless A Fourth Accuser Comes Forward

   DailyWire.com
New York State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins address the press to announce Mary J. Blige's and Steve Stoute's new charity initiative, FFAWN, at Roosevalt High Scool in Yonkers, New York on May 9, 2008.
Michael Loccisano/FilmMagic

Four accusers is apparently the magic number needed for New York’s state Senate Majority Leader to call for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D-NY) resignation.

Three women have already accused Cuomo of inappropriate behavior, including sexual harassment and forced kissing. That isn’t enough for state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester) to condemn her fellow Democrat, however.

The New York Post reported that Stewart-Cousins drew the line at four accusers while speaking on “Capital Tonight,” a public affairs program out of Albany, New York. The program was recorded “just hours before CBS News broadcast a wrenching interview with one of Cuomo’s three accusers,” the Post noted.

“Any further people coming forward, I think it would be time to resign,” Stewart-Cousins said on the program, responding to Spectrum News reported Susan Arbetter’s question about what would cause the state senator to call for Cuomo’s resignation.

Stewart-Cousins also said she might call for Cuomo to resign depending on the findings of New York State Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into the allegations against the governor, an investigation expected to take weeks to complete.

Stewart-Cousins’ remarks were taped just three hours before Albany’s CBS affiliate aired an interview with Charlotte Bennett, a former executive assistant and policy advisor to the Cuomo administration, said the governor asked her inappropriate “questions about her sex life, whether her relationships were monogamous, and whether she ever had sex with older men,” The Daily Wire’s Hank Berrien reported.

Bennett’s allegations followed those of Lindsey Boylan, who also worked in the Cuomo administration until she resigned, she says, because of sexual harassment. As The Daily Wire previously reported:

Boylan wrote a lengthy article on Medium detailing her allegations against Cuomo, beginning with a suggestion the government made while the two were on his taxpayer-funded jet in which he suggested they play “strip poker.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Boylan said she responded, claiming her statement was made “sarcastically and awkwardly” and that she “tried to play it cool.”

“Governor Andrew Cuomo has created a culture within his administration where sexual harassment and bullying is so pervasive that it is not only condoned but expected. His inappropriate behavior toward women was an affirmation that he liked you, that you must be doing something right. He used intimidation to silence his critics. And if you dared to speak up, you would face consequences,” Boylan wrote.

Not long after Boylan and Bennett spoke up, a third woman, Anna Ruch, came forward to say Cuomo made unwanted sexual advances toward her at a wedding, including placing his hands on her face and asking to kiss her.

“When she removed his hand with her own, Ms. Ruch recalled, the governor remarked that she seemed ‘aggressive’ and placed his hands on her cheeks. He asked if he could kiss her, loudly enough for a friend standing nearby to hear. Ms. Ruch was bewildered by the entreaty, she said, and pulled away as the governor drew closer,” The New York Times reported.

Cuomo has repeatedly denied the allegations.

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