ALBANY – Despite the State Attorney General’s ongoing investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, senior assistants to the governor have said they are also conducting their own ‘parallel review’ of the recent report by a female assistant that he was touched by Cuomo during the Executive Mansion late last year.
“We have our own inquiries going on,” a senior assistant to the governor told Times Union. “We have an obligation to investigate any claim of sexual harassment. And after we (the allegations of the female assistant) reported to the (Attorney General), we were instructed to continue our own investigation. … So there are several queries. “
Officials at the office of Attorney General Letitia James, who appointed two private attorneys to lead the investigation, did not respond to questions about the parallel investigation being conducted by Cuomo’s office. But a source in the office who is aware of the case has denied that anyone from the Attorney General’s office ‘ordered’ the governor’s office to conduct a parallel investigation.
“That’s absurd. Why would you do that?” says the lawyer for the woman who accused Cuomo of touching her. “It is not appropriate, and we are obviously concerned about the consequences and its effects on witnesses and the search for the truth.”
He described it as a ‘shadow investigation’.
The lawyer, whose client has not filed a formal complaint against Cuomo, requested that his name be withheld out of concern because its disclosure would reveal her identity to the general public. She still works in the governor’s office. Her allegations were reported to at least one of her colleagues by Cuomo’s senior assistants on March 8.
The woman’s associates took note of her allegations on March 3 when she became emotional at work while observing Cuomo during a press conference in which he denied ever touching a woman “inappropriately”. When they ask her what is wrong, she tells them about her alleged encounter with Cuomo in the mansion.
The governor’s acting lawyer, Beth Garvey, issued a statement late Wednesday: “We have fully informed the (Attorney General’s) office about the required process with these types of allegations and they said it should be followed up. matter was referred to GOER (Governor’s Office of Employee Relations) and (we) informed local law enforcement and that is the full scope of the action. ‘
Previously, the governor’s administration had distanced itself from GOER, arguing that it was a separate office conducting sexual harassment and other employee investigations without the involvement of the Executive Chamber. Last June, the governor’s office dealt with allegations of sexual harassment by another female assistant, Charlotte Bennett, without referring the matter to GOER.
The attorneys called in by the Attorney General to investigate allegations against Cuomo of various sexual harassment are Joon H. Kim, a former acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, and Anne L. Clark, who has extensive experience in business. about sexual harassment.
The separate investigation by the governor’s office into the woman’s protesting allegations is unfolding, as other staff members were recently notified that an attorney could be made available to accompany them if questioned by the attorney general’s investigators. . The staff members of the Executive Chamber were also instructed that a lawyer would be available to meet with them before the interviews, according to a person with knowledge of the case.
According to the person, this has upset some staff members because they are concerned about the implications of relying on an attorney provided by the Executive Chamber to possibly sit in on their interviews with the Attorney General’s investigators.
After this story was published online on Wednesday night, another senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigations, said: ‘It was also explicitly stated that you can hire your own lawyer if you do not want to use ( the attorneys held by the governors’ office). “
Two spokesmen for the governors’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On March 10, in response to the Times Union’s questions about the women’s protests, Cuomo issued a statement to the newspaper: “As I said yesterday, I have never done anything like this. The details of this report are “I will not go into the details of this or any other allegation, given the ongoing review, but I am confident in the outcome of the Attorney – General’s report.”
Cuomo said in a conference with reporters on Wednesday that he would no longer comment publicly on the allegations. He also declined to comment on the choice of a law firm in Washington, DC to investigate the court’s accusation of the governor. Cuomo and his associates have consistently used the words ‘review’ and ‘investigation’ to describe the investigations by the Assembly and the Attorney General’s Office.
“I’m not going to ask questions or comment on the review,” Cuomo said Wednesday. “Let the lawyers do their job and do the review, and then we can talk about it once facts have been established … but otherwise I’m going to respect the review and I will not comment on it.”
Cuomo mentioned during the call with reporters the investigation into the Attorney General and the accusation of the Assembly, but did not mention the internal investigation of his office.
The announcement by Cuomo’s office that he is investigating the women’s protests comes after Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said last week that the decision by Cuomo’s acting adviser on the possible sexual assault to the city police department to refer, was ‘extremely unusual’. According to her, the incident allegedly took place on state-owned property – the Executive Mansion – and would normally be handled by the state police.
“No one can remember the Albany police station being contacted with a complaint of this kind happening on state property,” Sheehan told Times Union last week.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, second from the left, is accompanied by the Department of Health Commissioner dr. Howard Zucker, left, budget director Robert Mujica, second from right, and Beth Garvey, acting councilor and senior adviser, right, during a news briefing last year. (Will Waldron / Times Union)
Will Waldron / Albany Times UnionCuomo’s lawyer reported the incident to Albany police on March 10 – hours after the Times Union released new details of the female assistant’s report of what she described as sexually aggressive tactics by the governor after she left the mansion was summoned.
“As a matter of state policy, when making allegations of physical contact, the agency notifies the complainant that they must contact their local police department,” Beth Garvey, the governor’s acting council, said in a statement last week. . “If they refuse, the agency is obliged to reach out itself and notify the department of the allegation.”
The governor’s office issued a letter of reference on March 1 authorizing the attorney general to launch an investigation into allegations that the governor sexually harassed at least two former female staff members. The referral may not authorize the Attorney General to conduct a criminal investigation or to summon witnesses before a grand jury.
The governor’s administration has criticized the failure to refer a complaint from Bennett, one of the former Cuomo assistants who made allegations against him, to the governor’s office of employee relations, as required by his own 2018 executive order.