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OpinionAndrew CuomoThe evidence is damning. If Cuomo had any self-respect, he’d resignMoira DoneganA 165-page report by the New York attorney general has found that the governor behaved in abusive, harassing, and illegal ways towards women Wed 4 Aug 2021 06.20 EDTLast modified on Wed 4 Aug 2021 10.55 EDT“We find all 11 women to be credible,” said Ann L Clark, at a press conference on Tuesday. Clark, an employment attorney, is one of the independent lawyers brought on to conduct New York attorney general Letitia James’s investigation into sexual harassment claims against governor Andrew Cuomo. Her statement was made as part of the release of a 165-page report by the attorney general’s office, a fact-finding investigation that determined that the governor had illegally abused and harassed women subordinates. The report corroborated accounts from almost a dozen women, including nine current and former employees of the governor’s office, one state trooper and one employee of the energy utility National Grid. The investigation found that Cuomo not only personally sexually harassed women, but that he created a hostile work environment and used his office in an attempt to silence and punish his accusers, all of which violate both federal and New York State civil rights laws. The report is the product of a months-long investigation, which included interviews with 179 people, a review of 74,000 documents and 11 hours of sworn testimony from Cuomo himself.Andrew Cuomo sexual harassment: the key testimony from the reportRead moreThe report confirms accounts from former aides, including Lindsey Boylan and Charlotte Bennett, who described a high-pressure environment (“rife with fear and intimidation,” in the words of the report) in which pleasing the governor was paramount, and where vulgar overtures, prying queries into their personal lives and unsolicited physical contact were common. The attorney general’s office lent credence to Boylan’s account of being harassed and forcibly kissed by the governor. The report also notes the copious evidence supporting the accusations made by Bennett, a young aide to whom the governor expressed sexual interest in unambiguous terms, asking if she was monogamous or if she slept with older men. Bennett’s account, the report says, matches the contemporaneous notes made by the officials she complained to, as well as her own statements to the press and near-contemporaneous texts she sent to friends and loved ones describing her distress at Cuomo’s behavior. The document also corroborates an account from an aide, whose identity has not been made public, who claims that the governor reached under her blouse and groped her breast at the governor’s mansion. That incident has been reported to Albany police.The James report also reveals new accusations against Cuomo. A female state trooper assigned to his security detail says he touched her stomach in one instance, and ran his finger down her spine while saying “Hey, you” in another. She says he kissed her on the cheek in front of her co-workers, an indignity that male troopers were not subjected to, and remarked that if she got married, it would decrease her sex drive. The trooper alleges that Cuomo, who is 63, told her he was looking for a girlfriend in her 20s who “could handle pain”. All of this happened while the trooper was responsible for Cuomo’s safety and protection.Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing, alleging in his own press conference on Tuesday that the attorney general’s investigation was biased, that he has never touched anyone inappropriately, that he offers unsolicited kisses to many people regardless of their sex, and that Bennett, the young aide who accused him of harassment, misinterpreted his comments due to her past history of sexual assault. The attorney general’s report said that investigators found Cuomo’s denials to “lack credibility and to be inconsistent with the weight of the evidence obtained during our investigation.”The report offers a damning and comprehensive view of Cuomo’s office culture, one in which women’s boundaries were crossed, the governor’s whims were indulged and employees’ dignity was routinely insulted for Cuomo’s amusement. But it almost didn’t get written at all. After the sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo became public earlier this year, the governor refused to resign – even as many state legislators and nearly all of New York’s congressional delegation urged him to do. When an independent investigation was proposed, Cuomo tried to assign the inquiry to judges he had appointed, possibly in an effort to influence its outcome. The elected attorney general had to fight for jurisdiction in order to deliver an independent investigation.Cuomo has clung to power over the past year even as his administration has been enveloped in other scandals. There was the revelation that during the pandemic he used state employees to help him write the splashy, self-congratulatory memoir for which he was handsomely paid. More disturbingly, there was the news that after a mistake in pandemic management cost thousands of senior citizens their lives, the governor’s office fudged the data on nursing home deaths, hoping to dodge responsibility. These scandals, too, point towards the same attitude by the governor as the alleged butt-grabbing and crude, adolescent boorishness outlined in the report: the idea that power is not a responsibility to others, but a license to do whatever he wants.The governor is not civically minded; he is not responsible with his office. He is reckless, disrespectful, misogynist and allergic to taking responsibility. He has demonstrated not merely an unfitness for power but a personal moral vacuity – an unwillingness to think of other people, of women, as equals, or to imagine his own actions as having consequences. Cuomo has a tremendous ego, but he seems to lack self-respect.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
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Andrew CuomoAndrew Cuomo sexual harassment: the key testimony from the reportEleven women have accused the New York governor of harassment – and investigators say their accounts have been corroborated Lauren ArataniTue 3 Aug 2021 16.18 EDTLast modified on Tue 3 Aug 2021 16.19 EDTMonths after New York governor Andrew Cuomo denied multiple allegations of sexual harassment, the New York attorney general’s office released a 165-page report on Tuesday that corroborates the allegations that made public over the last year.‘This is not who I am’: Cuomo issues denial after investigation finds he sexually harassed women – liveRead moreThe report details the allegations from 11 women. The investigators interviewed 179 witnesses, 41 of whom testified under oath, and obtained “thousands” of documents as evidence.Nine of the 11 women are current or former employees of the state government. Many share similar stories of fielding inappropriate questions from the governor and being subject to unwanted touching in his presence.While the report included testimony from women who had brief, unsettling encounters with the governor, investigators also talked to women who endured years of unwanted behavior while working under the governor.Below are their key accounts, which investigators say have been corroborated by interviews with witnesses and documents.Lindsey BoylanBoylan, a former executive at the Empire State Development Corporation (ESD) and deputy secretary for economic development, was the first woman to come out with allegations against Cuomo in December.The report said investigators were able to corroborate Boylan’s public allegations that she experienced multiple incidents of inappropriate touching and comments while working with Cuomo. Boylan joined the ESD in 2015 and climbed the ranks of the agency until she resigned in 2018.According to the report, Cuomo frequently commented on Boylan’s appearances and casually touched her waist, legs and back. Cuomo told Boylan she looked like a former girlfriend and sometimes called her by that girlfriend’s name.Boylan described an incident where, after a one-on-one meeting with the governor, she walked by him to leave and he stepped toward her and kissed her on the lips. The incidents were “deeply humiliating”, Boylan told investigators.“I think a lot of people are like: of course this happened to young women who have no power. Well, I was really senior, and I had worked my whole life to get to a point where I would be taken seriously, and I wasn’t being taken seriously,” she said. “I worked so hard to be a doll for the governor of New York.”The report also described retaliation against Boylan from the governor’s office, including leaking to the press confidential internal documents that negatively portrayed Boylan as a bad employee. The governor and his office also circulated among employees an op-ed that was ultimately not published that disparaged Boylan.Charlotte BennettBennett, who worked for Cuomo as an executive assistant until last fall, was the second woman who went public with allegations against the governor in February. Like Boylan’s allegations, investigators said in the report that they were able to corroborate the accusations Bennett had made public in the spring.Bennett described multiple inappropriate comments Cuomo made to her while she was employed by his office. Initially, she described seeing Cuomo as a father figure but later saw their interactions as inappropriate as he started asking her personal questions and making uncomfortable comments.She described a series of conversations that took place over two days in January last year. Cuomo complained to Bennett about how long it had been since he hugged anyone. Bennett said that she told Cuomo that he could hug his daughters, but he said “not like that – like a real hug”. He then said he was lonely and wanted a girlfriend.The governor also asked Bennett if she had ever been with older men and whether she thought age was significant in relationships. The governor told Bennett – who was 25 at the time – that he would have a relationship with someone who was “22 and up”.Bennett described feeling “really uncomfortable” but also described trying not to upset the governor.Executive assistant no 1A current aide to the governor, whose name has not been publicly released and who is referred to as “executive assistant no 1” in the report, told investigators of multiple incidents when Cuomo inappropriately touched her, along with comments and jokes he made about her personal life and relationships.She described several incidents when the governor touched her, including close hugs where Cuomo would run his hands up and down her back. After the governor asked to take a selfie with her in December 2019, she felt Cuomo grab her butt and rub it. In November, after a hug, the governor slid his hand up her blouse and groped her breast.The assistant said that the touching made her stressed and nervous to be around the governor, causing her physical reactions like hives on her neck. She told investigators that she believes the governor knew that she was nervous and was emboldened by it.The assistant said that she originally planned to take the groping incident “to the grave” but became emotional after Cuomo said at a press conference in March that he had never “touched anyone inappropriately”.Trooper no 1The report included two incidents that had not previously been reported. One involved an anonymous employee at the state’s health department who said Cuomo made sexually suggestive comments while she was performing a live Covid-19 nasal test on the governor.The second involves another anonymous employee, referred to as “trooper no 1” in the report, who, after first meeting Cuomo, was hired to join the state’s Protective Services Unit.The trooper, who has been with the PSU since 2018, described multiple incidents when Cuomo touched her or made inappropriate comments.Biden to comment on Cuomo as White House calls report findings ‘abhorrent’Read moreDuring the summer of 2019, Cuomo approached the trooper and kissed her on the cheek, she said.Cuomo also discussed age differences in relationship with the trooper. He asked the trooper, who was in her late 20s, how old she was, and responded: “You’re too old for me.”KaitlinThe governor met Kaitlin, whose last name has not been made public, at a fundraiser event that was hosted by the lobbying firm she was working for at the time, the report says. At the event, she introduced herself to the governor, who ended up pulling her into a “dance pose” for a photograph and told her that he was going to have her work for the state.Nine days later, Kaitlin received a voice message from the governor’s office inviting her to apply to a job, at the governor’s request. She told investigators she did not share her information with the governor’s office at the fundraising event nor did she express interest in a job to him or his staff at the event. She said the opportunity was presented to her because of her appearance.Kaitlin took the job at the governor’s office, where Cuomo would frequently make comments about her appearance and the appearance of other women. He would comment on her makeup or clothing.In one incident, Cuomo called Kaitlin into his office and asked her to look for car parts for him on eBay. She described feeling uncomfortable bending down to use his computer as she was in a dress and heels and Cuomo was directly behind her.TopicsAndrew CuomoUS politicsnewsReuse this content More