GOVERNOR ACCUSED OF UNWELCOME ADVANCE
Woman says Cuomo asked her for a kiss at wedding reception
Anna Ruch had never met Gov. Andrew Cuomo before encountering him at a crowded New York City wedding reception in September 2019. Her first impression was positive enough.
The governor was working the room after toasting the newlyweds, and when he came upon Ruch, now 33, she thanked him for his kind words about her friends. But what happened next instantly unsettled her: Cuomo put his hand on Ruch’s bare lower back, she said in an interview Monday.
When she removed his hand with her own, Ruch recalled, the governor remarked that she seemed “aggressive” and placed his hands on her cheeks. He asked if he could kiss her, loudly enough for a friend standing nearby to hear. Ruch was bewildered by the entreaty, she said, and pulled away as the governor drew closer.
“I was so confused and shocked and embarrassed,” said Ruch, whose recollection was corroborated by the friend, contemporaneous text messages and photographs from the event. “I turned my head away and didn’t have words in that moment.”
Ruch’s account comes after two former aides accused Cuomo of sexual harassment in the workplace, plunging his third term into turmoil as the governor’s defenders and Cuomo himself strain to explain his behavior.
A spokesperson for the governor did not directly address Ruch’s account, referring to a general statement that Cuomo released Sunday night in which he acknowledged that some things he has said “have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation.”
Ruch’s example is distinct from those of the former aides: A former member of the Obama administration and the 2020 Biden campaign, Ruch has never been employed by the governor or the state. But her experience reinforces the escalating concerns and accusations about Cuomo’s personal conduct — a pattern of words and actions that have, at minimum, made three women who are decades his junior feel deeply uncomfortable, in their collective telling.
Exactly a year after the state’s first confirmed coronavirus case — the dawn of a crisis that eventually propelled Cuomo to national Democratic stardom — the governor was silent Monday, even as the fallout continued to shadow his administration. His accusers were not quiet, however: Charlotte Bennett, a former aide who accused Cuomo of sexual harassment, issued her first public statement since outlining her claims in a New York Times article, saying that the apology and attempted explanation issued by the governor Sunday night was woefully inadequate.
“These are not the actions of someone who simply feels misunderstood,” Bennett wrote. “They are the actions of an individual who wields his power to avoid justice.”
Bennett also called on other women, if they had similar stories about Cuomo, to come forward. “If you choose to speak your truth, we will be standing with you,” she said. “I promise.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James received a letter Monday from Cuomo’s office authorizing her to take charge of the probe after a weekend of wrangling over who should investigate.
The letter enables James, also a Democrat, to deputize an outside law firm to conduct an inquiry with full subpoena power. The findings will be disclosed in a public report, the letter said.