29 July 2021: Member of Cuomo Legal Team to Resign Post

Cuomo’s Counsel, a Key Figure in Sexual Harassment Inquiry, Will Resign

The timeline has a running joke, based in truth, that Andrew M. Cuomo is desperately seeking better PR people and more legal help. This report confirms that Cuomo is losing one of his state government-employed attorneys, whose name came up prominently in the depositions of at least one of the women who have alleged Governor Cuomo sexually harassed them:

One of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s top lawyers, a central figure in the state attorney general’s investigation of the governor, will resign from her post next week just as the sexual harassment inquiry may be nearing an end.

Judith L. Mogul has served as special counsel to the governor since 2019 and was one of the senior Cuomo aides who handled a sexual harassment complaint lodged by Charlotte Bennett, a former executive assistant to Mr. Cuomo.

Ms. Bennett, 26, accused Mr. Cuomo of making sexual overtures while they were alone in his State Capitol office in June 2020, when she said Mr. Cuomo, 63, asked her whether she was monogamous and if she had sex with older men.

Soon after, Ms. Bennett said she disclosed the interaction with Mr. Cuomo to Jill DesRosiers, his chief of staff at the time, and was transferred to another job on the opposite side of the Capitol building. Later that month, Ms. Bennett said that she provided a lengthy statement about her allegations to Ms. DesRosiers and Ms. Mogul during a two-hour interview.

Ms. Bennett told The New York Times in February that both women had been sympathetic to her concerns, but her lawyers have since raised concerns about how the women handled Ms. Bennett’s allegations.

Mogul becomes the latest in the Cuomo administration's exodus of staffers under its ongoing cloud of scandals.