Six former New York government employees, Andrew Cuomo, said they were contacted by his office in the days after a former assistant accused the governor of sexual harassment in December, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Some of the people called said they had not heard from the administration for months and, according to the newspaper, regarded the calls as attempts at intimidation.
“I felt intimidated and confused,” said Ana Liss, a former assistant to the governor who received one of the calls. Liss also accused the governor of inappropriate behavior.
Lindsey Boylan, who tweeted in December that Cuomo had ‘sexually harassed her for years’, wrote in a Medium essay last month that Cuomo had subjected her to ‘penetrating harassment’ when she worked for him.
Boylan, now a candidate for city council president in Manhattan, New York City, worked for the Cuomo government from 2015 to 2018, accusing Cuomo of making numerous inappropriate remarks in front of other people and kissing her on the lips when they was alone.
Six women accused Cuomo of inappropriate behavior and asked him to resign. Cuomo denied that he had touched anyone inappropriately, but acknowledged that he had acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable. He said it was unintentional and apologized.
The governor’s office did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment regarding the calls to former employees in December, but Rich Azzopardi, Cuomo’s senior adviser, told the Wall Street Journal that the office did not intimidate anyone. do not have.
“There was no actual effort – this outreach happened organically when everyone’s phone started blowing up,” Azzopardi said.
“After the tweets from Mrs. Boylan in December, she and her lawyers and press members began reaching out to former members of the House, many of whom had never worked with her, ‘Azzopardi said in a statement. ‘Chamber called to let different staff members know and to indicate that they were upset about the outreach. As a result, we proactively reached out to a few former colleagues to go in and make sure they had heads. “
On Thursday night, after the Wall Street Journal report was published, Boylan tweeted that she did not have a lawyer at the time.
