3 May 2023: Cuomo's Lawyers Subpoena Women Who Allege They Were Sexually Harassed by Cuomo

Women who accused Cuomo of harassment being subpoenaed to testify

After month's of little visible activity, Andrew M. Cuomo's legal team is seeking to compel a number of women who allege they were sexually harassed by Cuomo while he served as New York's state governor to testify. The action comes in connection with a civil lawsuit filed by a female state trooper against Cuomo. Here are the lead paragraphs from this report:

Multiple women who accused Andrew M. Cuomo of sexual harassment or other misconduct are being subpoenaed to testify in a lawsuit filed by a State Police investigator who alleges the former governor kissed her on the cheek and made inappropriate comments to her when she was working on his security detail.

The pending depositions would enable the former governor’s attorneys, who have publicly assailed what they said were inconsistencies in some of the women’s accounts, to ask Cuomo’s accusers questions about their allegations while they are under oath and being videotaped. The 11 women — including the trooper — who leveled accusations against Cuomo were interviewed by representatives of the state attorney general’s office as part of an investigation in 2021 that resulted in a report that sustained their allegations and found he had sexually harassed or acted inappropriately while cultivating a toxic work environment.

The women are being drawn into the trooper’s lawsuit, in part, because the federal complaint recounts the details of their allegations in the attorney general’s report.

The women’s interviews with the attorney general’s investigators two years ago were also under oath and compelled by subpoenas. Cuomo resigned in the wake of the attorney general’s report. He has maintained he did nothing wrong, denied many of the allegations but also “deeply apologized” for his conduct when he resigned, saying “there are 11 women who I truly offended.”

The next excerpt summarizes the claims being advanced by the state trooper in the civil case:

The State Police investigator’s lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, lists allegations against Cuomo and his administration that largely mirror those outlined in the report issued by the attorney general’s office.

The trooper alleges the governor had kissed her on the cheek and touched her back and stomach — while she was on duty — in a manner that she found inappropriate. Cuomo has said he didn’t recall doing that but that he believed the trooper’s account.

“I didn’t do it consciously. I did not mean any sexual connotation,” he said two years ago. “I just wasn’t thinking. It was totally thoughtless… but it was also insensitive.”

The accusations by the trooper were among the most damaging leveled against Cuomo, who had urged a senior investigator on his protective detail to offer the female investigator a job on the special unit that protects the governor, according to the attorney general’s report.

The report said the investigator, who was a uniformed trooper at the time she alleges the former governor acted inappropriately, had described Cuomo as “creepy” and “flirtatious.”

There's more creepy, flirtatious stuff in the report. Click through to Brendan Lyons' article in the Times Union to find out more, if you must!