The first woman to publicly accuse Governor Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment claimed he once jokingly joked that he would “save” her if he were a dog, according to a new report.
Lindsey Boylan, a former assistant to the governor, revealed Cuomo’s creepy remark in a lengthy interview with Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker and tells that Cuomo made the joke in 2018 after a meeting in the governor’s mansion.
Boylan, 36, who is one of seven women accused of sexual misconduct against the governor, said he made the remark after Cuomo’s dog – a mixture of the German shepherd named Captain – on and jumped down at her.
She said she tried to calm the dog down and then withdrew.
Then Boylan said Cuomo joked that he would also try to “save” her if he was a dog.
“I remember being a naughty third-degree thing to say, but also, like a thing,” Boylan told the magazine.
“I just picked it up,” she said.
A spokesman for the governor did not immediately return calls for comment.
Boylan first accused Cuomo of sexual harassment in a series of December tweets, and then discussed the governor’s alleged behavior in a detailed post on the website Medium.
She claims Cuomo kissed her on the lips inside his office in Manhattan without warning in 2018 – and also claims that the governor asked her a year earlier to play strip poker while he was on a private plane.
Cuomo denied the allegations, saying he had never touched anyone improperly.
In the New Yorker interview, Boylan said that her former boss in the administration, Howard Zemsky, once told her that Cuomo had a “crush” on her.
She also remembered an extremely toxic workplace under governor, where assistants were reduced to tears and his political opponents were the target for childish games.
She remembers an occasion where Cuomo allegedly made fun of the hairstyle of a female assistant and left her in tears.
The governor also once mocked the weight of a former male staff member, Boylan said.
“It was toxic, and especially for women,” she said in an interview with her governor’s office.
Boylan also said that Cuomo, a longtime political enemy of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, had a dartboard bearing the mayor’s face on the grounds of the governor’s mansion.
“I could not believe how brave it was,” she told the magazine.