by Andrew Kerr
New York Attorney General Letitia James said there will be no criminal consequences for Gov. Andrew Cuomo despite her findings that he engaged in “unlawful” sexual harassment and retaliation against multiple women.
“Our work is concluded and the document is now public,” James said during a press conference Tuesday. “And the matter is civil in nature and does not have any criminal consequences.”
“We were tasked with the responsibility of engaging in an investigation. And we have concluded our investigation. And our work is done,” she added. “And so as it relates to next steps, that’s entirely up to the governor and or the assembly and the general public. But the work of the office of the Attorney General and these special deputies has concluded.”
James explicitly stated earlier in her press conference that Cuomo had violated federal and state law.
“The independent investigation has concluded that Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually arrested multiple women and violated federal and state law,” James said. “The investigation found that Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed current and former New York state employees by engaging in unwelcome and non-consensual touching and making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women.”
And a 168-page report released by James’s office unequivocally stated that Cuomo’s behavior towards at least five women “individually and collectively constitute unlawful sexual harassment.”
The report added that Cuomo’s office engaged in unlawful retaliation against one of the accusers, Lindsey Boylan, after she detailed how the New York Democrat sexually harassed her in a December 2020 post on Medium.
Cuomo’s office unlawfully leaked Boylan’s confidential records to numerous reporters at multiple news outlets after she published her allegations in an attempt to discredit her, the report detailed.
Top Cuomo adviser @RichAzzopardi sent an oppo file on Cuomo accuser Lindsey Boylan to a whole bunch of journalists, including at the AP, NYT, New York Post, The Hill. pic.twitter.com/49JplyWR7j
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) August 3, 2021
Anne Clark, one of the outside lawyers hired by James’ office to conduct the investigation into Cuomo, said at Tuesday’s press conference that prosecutors and police departments are free to take action on any of the evidence contained in their report.
Clark added that the Albany Police Department has a report detailing allegations from one of the accusers who alleged Cuomo reached under her blouse and grabbed her breast at the governor’s Executive Mansion in November 2020.
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Andrew Kerr is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Andrew Cuomo” by Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York by CC BY 2.0.
