After calls to resign, the governor of New York State faces a judicial sling. One of the eleven women named in an independent investigation accusing Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment filed a complaint Thursday, several media reported on Friday (August 6th). Information confirmed by a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office in Albany County, the state capital, to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
It is the first complaint to be known since the release on Tuesday of the explosive report emanating from an investigation by the office of the Attorney General of the State of New York, Letitia James. According to the American media, the complaint comes from a woman, anonymized under the name “Executive assistant # 1” in the report.
This assistant in Andrew Cuomo’s team has deplored several inappropriate and indecent gestures since the end of 2019 on the part of the governor, such as “Close and intimate hugs”. She also accuses him of having her “Grabbed the buttocks” several times, in hugs or in a selfie, and, once again in November 2020, at the governor’s official residence, in Albany, for having passed “Her hand under her blouse and touching her breast”.
His defense seeks to counterattack
Allegations that the governor refutes. “I have never touched someone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances”, Andrew Cuomo assured Tuesday, in a statement filmed from his office.
His lawyers counter-attacked and accused of bias the investigators commissioned by Letitia James, seeking to demonstrate that certain testimonies are false. “This investigation was conducted in such a way as to support a pre-constructed story”, said one of his lawyers, Rita Glavin. She deplored in particular that the governor did not have access before its release to the 168-page report to give his official version of the facts, nor to the full verbatims of the testimonies. Andrew Cuomo had been heard at length by investigators in July.
The lawyer also broadcast a story of the day of November 16, 2020, in particular from emails, supposed to show that the complainant exchanged with her colleagues in a light tone that day.
“It was the governor himself who asked Attorney General James to oversee an independent investigation”, retorted to Andrew Cuomo’s lawyers one of Letitia James’ advisers, Fabien Levy, in a press release, promising the verbatims of the testimonies. “There are eleven women whose accounts have been corroborated by mountains of evidence. “
This complaint paves the way for possible legal action for the governor, whom many Democratic allies, including President Joe Biden, have called for resigning, and who is also the subject of proceedings in the State Parliament of New York may lead to his dismissal. In addition, several prosecutors in the State of New York have assured, since Tuesday, that they had opened investigations.
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