Time’s Up for chief Quits after AG ties her to rapping Andy accuser
Her time is up.
Time’s Up — a national organization dedicated to supporting and empowering victims of sexual misconduct — pushed its chairwoman to resign on Monday in the wake of revelations that she participated in a shadowy effort to discredit one of Gov. Cuomo’s accusers.
Roberta Kaplan, a prominent New York lawyer who co-founded the group’s legal defense fund and chaired its board, was ousted as part of what Time’s Up President Tina Tchen called an ongoing endeavor to “hold ourselves accountable.”
“We and she agree that is the right and appropriate thing to do,” Tchen said in a statement of Kaplan’s resignation.
Kaplan did not respond to calls or emails, and a representative who picked up the phone at her Manhattan law office declined to comment.
State Attorney General Letitia James’ investigators concluded in their report released last week that Kaplan helped Cuomo’s team draft a public response in late 2020 questioning the motives and credibility of Lindsey Boylan, a former adviser to the governor who’s one of 11 women accusing him of sexual harassment.
According to James’ 168-page report, Kaplan, an occasional adviser to Cuomo, gave the thumbs up to issuing the statement after offering some pointers.
However, the missive was never widely disseminated after other Cuomo allies involved in writing it said it could backfire.
In another tie to the governor, Kaplan represented top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa in the AG’s probe.
DeRosa resigned from her post in Cuomo’s office on Sunday, saying that recent months have been “emotionally and mentally trying” for her. The AG’s investigation found that DeRosa spearheaded the effort to smear Boylan and that she was also a major force in fostering a “toxic” work environment for young female staffers in Cuomo’s office.
Kaplan isn’t the only Time’s Up honcho facing heat in the wake of the AG report’s release.
Bronx State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi issued a letter with several fellow Democrats to the Time’s Up board on Monday noting that Tchen was also named in James’ report as having had a hand in advising Cuomo’s office on how to respond when Boylan became the first woman to accuse the governor of misconduct.
“The pattern of your behavior shows you do not deserve our trust any longer without serious structural changes. Time’s Up has lost its way,” read the letter, which called for the removal of any Time’s Up staffers involved in supporting “perpetrators of harm.”
Boylan, meantime, said she’s gearing up to file a lawsuit against Cuomo and “others who were involved in these efforts to smear me.”
“Too many people have been harmed or had their careers destroyed after reporting harassment,” she wrote in an essay published online. “Retaliation is unacceptable in any workplace. It revictimizes those who have suffered abuse and it deters people from coming forward.”
The fallout from the AG report goes beyond Time’s Up and Cuomo’s office.
The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ rights advocacy group, announced Monday that it has launched an internal investigation into Alphonso David, its president, for his role in the anti-Boylan letter.
Like Kaplan, David, Cuomo’s former counsel, advised the governor’s team about the Boylan letter in late 2020, James’ investigators found. He also agreed to seek out former Cuomo staffers who would be willing to put their names on the statement after he himself declined to do so, according to the AG report.
Morgan Cox and Jodie Patterson, co-chairs of HRC’s board, called the findings about David “very concerning” and said an outside law firm will conduct their internal probe.
“Over the past several days, HRC’s employees, supporters, board members and partners have raised questions about the appropriateness of Alphonso David’s actions and whether they align with HRC’s decades’ long mission of fighting for equality and justice for all,” Patterson and Cox said in a statement.
Since James’ report was released, several district attorney offices across New York have launched criminal investigations into Cuomo while the state Assembly proceeds with an impeachment probe.
Despite his mounting legal woes, the increasingly isolated governor has refused to resign and vehemently denies sexually harassing anyone.
Cuomo’s spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, said last week that the governor will cooperate in the Assembly probe, which could wrap up with a vote on articles of impeachment as early as this month.