How Cuomo’s team tried to decorate one of his accused

Days after Lindsey Boylan became the first woman to accuse Governor Andrew M. Cuomo of sexual harassment in a series of Twitter messages in December, people linked to the governor began distributing an open letter hoping that former staff members would sign.

The letter was a complete attack on me. Boylan’s credibility, indicating that her accusation was preceded and politically motivated. It revealed the complaints of staff filed against her and attempted to connect her with supporters of former President Donald J. Trump.

“The claim of sexual harassment for personal political gain or notoriety cannot be tolerated,” the letter reads. “False claims despise the truth of credible claims.”

According to three people with direct knowledge of the events, the initial idea was that former Cuomo assistants – especially women – should sign their names on the letter and spread it quite widely.

One of the people created multiple concepts, and Mr. Cuomo was involved in creating the letter. Current assistants to the governor send at least one draft to a group of former advisers. From there, it spread to current and former top assistants to the governor.

It is not clear how many people were asked to sign the letter, but two former officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want to anger Cuomo, decided they did not want their names on it.

The letter, reviewed by The New York Times, was never released. Ms Boylan did not immediately expand or follow up on her Twitter posts in December, making her accusations disappear, coupled with the urgency of the attempt to discredit her. The letter still shows that the Cuomo government was ready to quickly and aggressively subdue Ms Boylan, a Democrat who is quickly running for president in Manhattan.

At the time, officials on the governor’s side were aware of another issue of sexual harassment involving Mr. Cuomo was involved and that has not yet been made public.

Six months earlier, Charlotte Bennett, an executive assistant and senior shorthander, had told two senior officials in the governor’s office that he had harassed her and asked her personal investigative questions, including whether she was monogamous and whether she slept with older men. .

Me. Bennett became aware of her allegations in The New York Times last month and said in an interview how she ‘understands that the governor wants to sleep with me’, adding that she ‘feels terribly uncomfortable and scared’.

Ms Bennett emerged a few days after Ms Boylan wrote an essay on Medium, setting out the allegations she initially made on Twitter on December 13th. Ms Boylan wrote that the governor would repeatedly try to touch her arms, legs. and low back, and that he once suggested they ‘play strip poker’.

Since then, several other women have accused Cuomo of inappropriate behavior, from unwanted sexual advances to unsolicited kisses and suitcases.

The governor denied that he had ever touched anyone improperly and pleaded with New Yorkers to await the outcome of two separate investigations: one under the supervision of Attorney General Letitia James and another by the state legislature. Although Mr. Cuomo suggested that some of his actions or statements could be misinterpreted was his rejection of Ms.’s allegations. Boylan much tougher.

“I believe that a woman has the right to come forward and express her opinion and express issues and concerns,” he said. Cuomo said on Dec. 14. “But that’s just not true.”

Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to the governor, said on Tuesday that the government had no comment on the letter about Ms Boylan, citing ongoing investigations.

At least one version of the letter has the text exchange of me. Boylan last year with some senior advisers from Mr. Cuomo included, in an attempt to indicate that she was malicious. The Times does not quote in detail from the letter, to prevent character attacks from being published that have not been made public.

The concept greatly disrespected Ms Boylan and accused her of using her allegations for ‘political retaliation’.

The letter points out that Boylan’s campaign consultant also represented a political opponent of the governor, and that Ms Boylan was ‘supported by Donald Trump’s lawyers and financial backers: an active opponent of the governor’.

The initial plan for a letter on Ms Boylan illustrates how the Cuomo government is prepared to make a broader effort to harm its credibility.

The approach seems consistent with a culture of intimidation of the governor’s office that former assistants described, and me. Boylan was clearly a target.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that assistants to Mr. Cuomo at least six former assistants shortly after Mrs. Boylan’s Twitter messages, which accused the governor of harassing her in front of others. The calls were to ask if the former assistants had heard from the accused, or to learn things about her. Some of those contacted felt as if the calls were meant to speak to them.

Another accused of mr. Cuomo and another former assistant, Ana Liss, said she received a call from a top adviser to the governor shortly after Ms Boylan tweeted about the governor in December.

“I thought, why would he do that?” Me. Liss, who now works in Monroe County, said in an interview. “He was trying to confirm how wide Lindsey’s network was.”

The lawyer of me. Boylan, Jill Basinger, said Tuesday the letter is another attempt to smear her client.

‘Once again, a victim of sexual harassment who has the courage to tell her story is put in the position of not only having to relive the trauma of a toxic work environment, but also having to defend herself against the malicious leak of alleged staff files , character assassinations and a whisper campaign of retaliation, ‘Ms Basinger said. “This page must be removed from the governor’s harassment manual.”

The use of such tactics in harassment claims is so common that it has its own acronym: DARVO, which stands for ‘deny, attack and reverse victim and offender’.

“It’s incredibly common for individuals who experience sexual harassment to also experience retaliation,” said Emily Martin, vice president of education and justice at the workplace at the National Women’s Law Center, which runs the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund. “We’ve heard of thousands of individuals seeking help to address workplace harassment, and more than 70 percent of them say they’ve experienced retaliation as well.”

Shortly after me. Boylan for the first time for Mr. Cuomo accused several media organizations of publishing details of her staff records released by the Cuomo government, in which unflattering reports from Ms. Boylan’s actions as boss and recommendations of disciplinary action against her were set out.

For supporters of mr. Cuomo, who denied, apologized for the documents and sketched a picture of a disgruntled employee with an ax to grind.

Beth Garvey, the acting attorney of Mr. Cuomo, the release of Ms. Boylan defended the records and said on Tuesday that it was, with certain exceptions, “within a government entity’s discretion to share signed service records, even in cases where members of the media ask for such public information and when it aims to inaccurate or to correct misleading statements. ”

She, too, quoted the Attorney General’s investigation and refrained from commenting further.

The speed with which the documents were provided was extraordinary, especially given that state house reporters in Albany and elsewhere were accustomed to waiting months, if not years, for access to public records through the State Freedom Information Act.

“The administration has a well-documented record of being properly closed on FOIL,” said Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, saying he was reporting to Joseph Percoco, a close aide to Mr. . Cuomo, wants to stimulate. who was convicted in 2018 of federal corruption charges. “There are significant and consistent examples of this that make it very difficult to get records.”

Attorneys working on sexual harassment said an employee’s work history does not matter whether they can claim harassment.

“There is no defense against the harassment that the person was a bad employee,” said Elizabeth Kristen, a senior lawyer at Legal Aid at Work in San Francisco, saying, “It’s not even relevant. Maybe she was the worst employee in the world, but she can still be harassed. ‘

Luis Ferré-Sadurní reported.