Creepy Cuo ogled me, journo says
Then ‘offered her a job’
A former Albany reporter on Thursday became the latest woman to accuse Gov. Cuomo of inappropriate behavior — saying he “embarrassed” her with undue attention after eyeing her at a news conference more than a decade ago.
Valerie Bauman (inset), who was 25 at the time, also said she was later granted “an unusual level of access” to Cuomo, then the state’s attorney general, and was even offered a job by one of his staffers.
In a series of tweets, Bauman said she was covering New York state politics for The Associated Press when she sat directly across from Cuomo during a news conference at which “he made unwavering eye contact, actually staring to the point that I started blushing.”
Bauman, who now works for Bloomberg News, said she began “looking around at the people surrounding me, whose own facial expressions indicated, ‘Yes, ma’am, he’s looking at you.’ ”
When the news conference ended, another reporter told her that Cuomo “beelined” toward Bauman, she said. “He took my hand, entered my personal space and looked in my eyes as he announced, ‘Hello, I’m Andrew Cuomo.’
” A photo of the interaction, which Bauman posted online, shows Cuomo standing just inches from her as she leans away.
“Afterward, a fellow reporter loudly observed that Andrew Cuomo seemed very into me,” she wrote. “I was embarrassed, but at least it wasn’t my imagination, I thought.”
Bauman said she later got a call from “one of his staff ” who “asked me if I had any interest in working for the Attorney General’s Office.”
Although she declined the offer, Bauman said, Cuomo would “sometimes pick up the phone himself ” when she called his office “with simple questions that an aide could easily answer.”
“He danced around my tougher lines of inquiry, often asking me random personal questions. It felt like he was flirting with me, and I think that’s because he was,” she wrote. “It was embarrassing and uncomfortable . . . The calls eventually dwindled and stopped altogether.”
Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said, “I’m not aware of these specifics, but it is my understanding that it wasn’t uncommon, especially early on, when the attorney general’s press office was relatively small, for the then-attorney general and senior staff to engage directly with members of the press on articles.”