More aides tell of Cuomo sex ordeals
TWO more former aides of New York governor Andrew Cuomo have accused him of sexual misconduct.
Ana Liss, 35, a policy and operations aide, said he asked her if she had a boyfriend, touched her lower back at a reception and kissed her on the hand.
She said at first she thought Cuomo’s actions were ‘harmless flirtations’ but later felt she was ‘just a skirt’ instead of a professional.
‘He came right over to me and was like, “Hey, sweetheart!”,’ she said of one meeting in his official residence.
Ms Liss – who worked for him from 2013 to 2015 – never made a formal complaint but eventually asked for a transfer to another office, she told The Wall Street Journal.
Former press aide Karen Hinton, 62, told The Washington Post Cuomo, 63, summoned her to his ‘dimly lit’ hotel room and embraced her after a work event in 2000. When she tried to pull away, he held her before she escaped.
His office denied the claim, calling her a ‘known antagonist of the governor, attempting to take advantage of this moment to score cheap points with made up allegations from 21 years ago’. She responded: ‘Attacking the accuser is the classic playbook of powerful men trying to protect themselves.
‘I really thought the flirt wasn’t about having sex,’ she added. ‘It was about controlling the relationship.’
Last week, Charlotte Bennett, 25, Lindsey Boylan, 36, and Anna Ruch, 33, accused him of sexual harassment.
Cuomo, a divorced dad of three daughters, apologised for making the three women feel uncomfortable but claimed it was playful banter.
New York attorney general Letitia James has begun an investigation into Boylan and Bennett’s claims through an outside law firm.