Ex-attorney general for New York faces probe
ALBANY, New York — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas Tuesday as a special prosecutor to investigate allegations that then-state attorney general Eric Schneiderman physically abused four women.
Singas will work with Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy Sini to investigate one of the incidents, in which a woman accused Schneiderman of slapping her at a house in the Hamptons in 2016, officials said Tuesday.
Cuomo said Singas would have broad powers to subpoena, investigate and, if warranted, prosecute criminal charges against Schneiderman who, until he announced his resignation Monday night, was the state’s top law enforcement official.
The alleged 2016 assault was one of several recounted in a Monday article published in The New Yorker magazine that led Schneiderman to resign his post, effective Tuesday.
Schneiderman has denied allegations of abuse by four previous romantic partners but conceded they will prevent him from running the office.
Cuomo said Singas’s probe would supersede other investigations by prosecutors in the case. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. also announced he was investigating accusations of physical abuse against Schneiderman, 63.
Schneiderman, a Democrat, has been accused of choking, slapping, threatening or otherwise abusing four women during intimate encounters.
The developments brought a tart tweet from U.S. President Donald Trump’s eldest son. Schneiderman had positioned himself as a leader of the liberal resistance to Trump and had warned in a tweet last year that no one was above the law.
“You were saying???” Donald Trump Jr. tweeted.