ANOTHER FORMER AIDE ACCUSES NEW YORK GOVERNOR OF HARASSMENT

NEW YORK: Another woman who worked for New York governor Andrew Cuomo is describing conduct she felt was inappropriate. Ana Liss, 35, told The Wall Street Journal in a story published on Saturday when she worked as a policy aide to the governor from 2013-2015, Cuomo called her “sweetheart”, kissed her hand and asked personal questions. She said he sometimes greeted her with a hug and a kiss on both cheeks.

Liss told WSJ she initially thought of Cuomo’s behaviour as harmless, but it grew to bother her. She felt it was patronizing.

“It’s not appropriate, really, in any setting,” she said. “I wish that he took me seriously.” A spokesman for Cuomo didn’t immediately return a request for comment from Associated Press, but told the Journal that some of the behavior Liss was describing was the kind of innocent gladhanding that politicians often do at public events.

“Reporters and photographers have covered the governor for 14 years watching him kiss men and women and posing for pictures,” said Rich Azzopardi, a senior advisor to Cuomo. “At the public open-house mansion reception, there are hundreds of people, and he poses for hundreds of pictures. That’s what people in politics do.”

Cuomo’s workplace conduct has been under intense scrutiny in recent days as several women have publicly told of feeling sexually harassed, or at least made to feel demeaned and uncomfortable by the Democrat.