In the days after the New York government Andrew Cuomo was first accused of sexual harassment by a former assistant, the governor’s office called at least six former employees to find out if they had heard of the accused, or to get information about to win her over in conversations some have said they consider the attempts to intimidate them.
Some people who received the calls said they had not heard from the administration for months before calling about the accused. One said a caller encouraged them to give reporters information that discredits the accuser, Lindsey Boylan, who worked as an economic adviser to the Cuomo government between 2015 and 2018.
According to several recipients, the current administration officials and former assistants who are still near the governor’s office have been called. According to the people familiar with the effort, Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s top assistant, reached out.
“I felt intimidated and confused,” said Ana Liss, a former assistant to the governor who received one of the calls.
Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, denied touching anyone improperly and apologized for any misinterpreted behavior.
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Seth Wenig / Press Pool
Mrs. Liss, what mr. Cuomo accused of misconduct, said Rich Azzopardi, a senior adviser to Mr. Cuomo, called her on December 21st. The call comes eight days after Mrs. Boylan in a report on Twitter that the governor sexually harassed her.
Me. Liss had not worked for the governor for more than five years and could not remember when the administration was last in contact, she said.
She said Mr. Azzopardi reminds her of the call of how much she had achieved during her work at the governor and asked her if she had a message from me. Boylan received. She told him that she did not do so and said that the conversation ended on a friendly note.
Mr. Azzopardi said in a statement: “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. The former members of the Chamber called to let various staff members know and to indicate that they were upset about the outreach. As a result, we proactively reached out to some former colleagues to go in and make sure they had heads. ”
Mr. Azzopardi says the calls are not coordinated by Ms DeRosa. “There was no real effort – this outreach happened organically when everyone’s phone started blowing up.” He added that they did not intimidate anyone.
In Twitter reports after this story was published, Ms Boylan said she did not reach anyone in December and that she did not have a lawyer at the time.
Three former employees of his time as governor and one current assistant to Cuomo accused the governor of inappropriate behavior or sexual harassment in the workplace, demanding that Republicans and high-ranking State Democrats resign him.
“I felt intimidated and confused,” said Ana Liss, a former assistant to the governor who received one of the calls.
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Democrats dominating the state legislature have launched an indictment that will look at the allegations as well as how the government of Cuomo Covid-19 handled nursing homes. State Attorney General Letitia James is now overseeing an investigation into the allegations made by the former assistants and how Mr. Cuomo’s office handled the complaints.
Mr. Cuomo denied that he had touched anyone inappropriately and apologized for any misinterpreted behavior. He also demanded that New York residents withhold judgment until James’ investigation is completed.
Me. Boylan said Mr. Cuomo tried to kiss her on the lips in his office and during a flight in 2017 in his plane suggested that they play strip poker.
A Cuomo spokesman denied the allegations. Boylan denies.
Another former assistant, Charlotte Bennett, said Mr. Cuomo asked about her sex life and whether she had relationships with older men. Me. Liss said he asked her if she had a boyfriend, touched her lower back at a reception and kissed her hand once when she got up from her desk. A fourth woman accused the governor this week of touching her inappropriately during a meeting at the Executive Mansion last year.
In a statement on Wednesday, Cuomo said: “As I said yesterday, I’ve never done anything like this. The details of this report are complicated. I’m not going to talk about 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. ”
The governor has in previous statements encouraged women to come forward and said that his office will work with me. James’s investigation.
Mr. Cuomo and his associates have pursued accused and opponents in the past, according to court documents and former staff members.
In October 2000, Mr. Cuomo, when he was secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, accused of sex discrimination and harassment in an internal memo submitted by Susan Gaffney, a former inspector general of the HUD. She has mr. Cuomo and other HUD officials accused of intimidation and harassment after she conducted an audit of some of the work that Mr.
Me. Gaffney testified to Congress in 1998 that Cuomo’s assistants were trying to smear her, including the release of an anonymous letter that Cuomo allegedly received, saying she was targeting minorities.
Mr. Cuomo assured her at one point that he had nothing to do with the actions by key assistants, she said. ‘I have suggested that if his key assistants act without his approval, they should resign; the secretary did not respond, ”she said in the 1998 testimony, adding that tactics that Mr. Cuomo and his assistants used, ‘dirty tricks’ were to force her to resign.
Gaffney could not be reached.
After Ms Boylan tweeted her account in December, she said in a February 24 media post that media channels had received “parts of a suspected confidential staff file” of her time at the administration. Me. Boylan said in the report that she had never seen the file before and that it was an attempt to smear her.
In response to the allegation of Ms. Boylan on her staff record, Beth Garvey, the governor’s acting lawyer, said: ‘With general limited exceptions, it is generally a government entity’s discretion to share signed work records, including cases where members of the media provide such public information. asks and when it is intended to correct inaccurate or misleading statements. ”
Me. Boylan also said in the Medium message that “the governor’s loyalists in the city called and asked for me.”
One of the recipients of a call said the caller asked in December if Ms Boylan was in touch with the recipient and what the recipient thought of her allegations.
Another recipient of a call said that a caller, a current official in the Cuomo administration, had asked if reporters had been contacted about Ms Boylan and wanted to confirm the nature of the recipient’s experience with Ms Boylan. “The subtext was clear: I was asked to dish dirt on her,” the recipient said.
Write to Khadeeja Safdar at [email protected], Deanna Paul at [email protected] and Jimmy Vielkind at [email protected]
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