Jessica Bakeman, now a reporter at WLRN in Miami, wrote that she was 25 years old when she treated Cuomo, claiming that he regularly touched her without her permission – ‘on my arms, my shoulders, the small of me back, my waist “- and describes one incident in 2014 during a holiday party at the Executive Mansion where he took her hand, put his arm around her, put his hand on her waist and ‘held her tight’.
Bakeman added that Cuomo did so “while pointing out to a photographer that he wants us to pose for a photo.” She said he said in front of her colleagues, “I’m sorry. Am I making you uncomfortable? I thought we were going to be steady,” Bakeman described in a moment as humiliating.
Bakeman described the incident as one of the worst ways Cuomo sexually harassed her, but wrote that it was one of many incidents.
“I never thought the governor wanted to have sex with me. It was not about sex. It was about power,” Bakeman wrote. “He wanted me to know that I was powerless, that I was small and weak, that I did not deserve what relative power I had: a platform to hold him accountable for his words and actions. He wanted that I should know that he could take away my dignity at any moment with an inappropriate remark or a hand on my waist. ‘
CNN issued the Cuomo government for direct comment on her allegations, but at a news conference Friday, Cuomo generally denied new allegations and urged the public to “wait for the facts.”
“Women have the right to come forward and be heard,” Cuomo told the news conference. “I did not do what was alleged, period.”
Bakeman wrote that she felt Cuomo had bullied men as well as women, according to her experience, but that he “never made me forget that I was a woman.”
“It’s not like Cuomo is saving men in his job from his brand bullying and degrading behavior. But the way he is bullying and humiliating women is different,” Bakeman wrote. “He uses poignant and sexual insinuations to instill fear in us. That is the definition of sexual harassment in the textbook.”
CNN also contacted Bakeman for further comment on her article.