Probe confirms evidence of misconduct by Cuomo

ALBANY, N.Y. — A legislative investigation released Monday found “overwhelming evidence” that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed women and that he ordered state workers to help produce his book on pandemic leadership during work hours.

The report also found that Cuomo’s staff “substantially revised” a state health department report on COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes to exclude statistics that might have dimmed his reputation as a pandemic leader.

The findings, authored by a law firm hired by the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee, were widely expected, and the sections on sexual harassment largely echo allegations made in a report last summer by the state’s attorney general.

But it offered some new details, particularly around the $5.2 million private deal Cuomo struck to write the book.

Cuomo had promised state ethics officials that no state resources would be used on the book, but the Assembly’s investigators at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell said they found evidence the governor had his staff spend copious amounts of time on the project.

Cuomo, a Democrat, resigned in August to avoid a likely impeachment trial.

His spokesperson, Richard Azzopardi, said that junior staffers didn’t help on the book and that staffers who volunteered took time off.

Assembly investigators conducted interviews and gathered mountains of evidence, but Azzopardi blasted the report for relying partly on what he called the “politically biased” investigation overseen by Democratic attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Letitia James. That investigation found Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women.

But Azzopardi called those allegations bogus. Cuomo has denied sexually harassing anyone or touching any women inappropriately.

The former governor faces a separate criminal charge alleging that he groped the breast of a former assistant, Brittany Commisso, after summoning her to the executive mansion on Dec. 7, 2020.

The Assembly report said it had reviewed records that back up Commisso’s account of her whereabouts on the day she says the attack happened.

“We conclude that there is overwhelming evidence that the former Governor engaged in sexual harassment,” the report reads.