Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his presentation of the State Budget on Jan. 19, 2021 (Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)
ALBANY – A sixth woman has leveled allegations of sexually inappropriate conduct against Gov. Andrew Cuomo, accusing him of touching her without consent late last year during an encounter at the governor’s mansion.
The Albany Times Union is reporting the woman is a member of the governor’s Executive Chamber staff. The alleged incident took place after she had been summoned to the mansion to assist the governor with a work-related matter.
The woman’s supervisors recently became aware of the allegation and alerted the governor’s counsel of it on Monday.
An official close to the matter on Tuesday confirmed to the Times Union that the new allegation had been made.
Cuomo, in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, did not deny touching women, but repeated his statement from last week that if he did, it was not “inappropriate.”
The new allegation is just the latest in a series of sexual harassment claims and inappropriate behavior that have been leveled against the governor in the past few weeks. In addition, the governor has been criticized for they way his office has handled the reporting of COVID-19 deaths of nursing home residents – in which it appears there was an effort to hide the real numbers from members of the state legislature and the general public.
WRFA spoke with Assemblyman Andy Goodell (R-Ellicott) on Tuesday, who said the number of allegations against the governor is definitely becoming a major distraction. Goodell stopped short of calling for either a resignation or impeachment proceedings, saying that as an attorney, he supports a full investigation of the facts, but also said he believes the investigation will affirm the allegations actually did occur.
An investigation into sexual harassment claims is being coordinated by the attorney general’s office, who announced earlier this week it will be handled by two private attorneys – a former acting U.S. attorney for New York’s Southern District, and an attorney who specializes in labor law and sexual harassment cases.
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