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2 years after resignation, Cuomo doubles down on trying to discredit harassment allegations
By
Jon Campbell
Published Aug 24, 2023
Modified Aug 24, 2023
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Photo by Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images
By
Jon Campbell
Published Aug 24, 2023
Modified Aug 24, 2023
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Two years after he resigned as New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, a once rising star in Democratic politics, continues to challenge an investigation that found he sexually harassed nearly a dozen women while in office.
The ongoing battle is now playing out around a lawsuit filed last year by a New York state trooper who claims Cuomo sexually harassed her on the job. The lawsuit pointed to similar accusations from 10 other women to bolster her case, which were all lifted from a 2021 report from state Attorney General Letitia James’ office that preceded the governor’s decision to quit his job.
Now, the former governor and his inner circle are doubling down on their yearslong quest to repair his reputation, despite claims from his accusers that it amounts to retaliation. Cuomo — who denies the allegations — and his attorneys are trying to use the anonymous trooper’s extensive citations to their advantage by issuing subpoenas to some of the accusers in the AG's report, to their cellphone providers and even a former state senator.
Cuomo’s team argues that the subpoenas — several of which are being challenged — are fair game and necessary to mount a defense, since the report forms the basis of some of the trooper’s lawsuit.
“Anyone with a set of eyes can see the holes in Trooper 1’s complaint, which rips off the AG’s discredited report,” said Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo and a co-defendant in the lawsuit.
But attorneys for the women who accused Cuomo of various forms of misconduct say the subpoenas are too broad and are an intimidation tactic by the former governor, whose millions of dollars in defense costs will ultimately be reimbursed by taxpayers under state law.
In a letter to the court, Danya Perry — an attorney for Lindsey Boylan, a former Cuomo administration aide who was the first to accuse the governor of harassment in 2021 — put it this way: “Mr. Cuomo has nothing but time and money to burn, and a public narrative he desperately would like to relitigate.’
“Cuomo’s subpoenas, including an unprecedented barrage to unrelated third-parties, are irrelevant, excessive, and extreme,” said Perry and Julie Gerchik, another one of Boylan’s attorneys, in a statement. “This is just another means of Cuomo harassing and retaliating against Ms. Boylan and other victims all over again.”
James’ office declined to comment on Wednesday. The attorney general has repeatedly stood behind the report and its findings, which set off discussions over impeachment proceedings against Cuomo, whose national popularity exploded during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic before his voluntary resignation.
Cuomo in court
Cuomo currently faces federal lawsuits from two women who accused him of harassing behavior.
- The first woman, known in the complaint as Trooper 1, filed suit in February 2022. She claims Cuomo handpicked her to work on his protective detail. While on the job, the trooper claims Cuomo made suggestive comments to her and once ran his finger down her spine. Another time, the trooper claims Cuomo ran his palm along the front of her waist.
- The second lawsuit is from Charlotte Bennett, a now 28-year-old former aide who says the governor asked her extensive, invasive questions about a past sexual assault and her personal life, including whether she would ever be with an older man. She filed her suit in September 2022.
None of Cuomo’s other accusers from the AG’s investigation have filed lawsuits against him at this point.
The two lawsuits take different approaches when it comes to the AG’s report, which was crafted by private attorneys Joon Kim and Anne Clark after Cuomo — who was facing heat after Bennett and Boylan went public with their allegations — asked James’ office to investigate.
Bennett’s lawsuit focuses more on her own allegations, without delving into the details of accusations from most of the other women.
Trooper 1’s lawsuit takes a different approach, detailing each of the women named in the AG’s report as a way of trying to show an alleged pattern of behavior by Cuomo — something that could, in theory, help the trooper’s case.
But Cuomo's attorneys are using that as a window to litigate the AG’s report and the claims his various accusers have made — while also signaling that they intend to try to strike the claims from Trooper 1’s lawsuit.
Cuomo demands documents, depositions
Since the trooper filed her lawsuit, Cuomo’s team has filed numerous subpoenas demanding documents and depositions from people like Boylan; Ana Liss, a former aide who says Cuomo oversaw a toxic workplace; and another former Cuomo aide known in the report as “Kaitlin,” who says Cuomo made comments about her appearance and once had her look up “car parts” on his computer, which required her to bend in front of him while wearing a skirt.
They’ve also subpoenaed former state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, a former Cuomo aide turned critic, as well as cellphone companies, to try and establish what kind of contact the women had with each other, according to court records.
Boylan’s attorneys, in particular, are fighting the subpoenas, including the one to Biaggi, arguing that they’re overly broad and infringe on the women’s personal privacy. Boylan has not filed a lawsuit against Cuomo.
Like Liss and Kaitlin, Boylan is not a party to Trooper 1’s case and hasn’t met her, according to court filings.
“The endless barrage of document requests to and about Ms. Boylan simply are not relevant to this lawsuit, and our motions respectfully request that the Court put an end to Mr. Cuomo’s cynical fishing expedition,” Perry wrote in a letter to the court.
Azzopardi, meanwhile, noted it was Trooper 1’s attorneys from Wigdor LLP that included the other women's claims in her lawsuit.
‘If they’re unhappy, they should take it up with them and their client,” he said.
In its own court filing, Trooper 1’s attorney — Valdi Licul — accused Cuomo of trying to spin a tale of “being persecuted by a seeming endless array of co-conspirators,” including James, the state Assembly, Kim and ex-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who investigated Cuomo’s administration extensively while in office. Kim was once a top Bharara deputy.
Licul asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Taryn Merkl to force Cuomo to sit for a deposition, which has been twice delayed.
Azzopardi, in his statement to Gothamist, accused Wigdor of “stonewalling discovery at every turn,” saying it “says more about the weakness of their case than anything else.”
“I ask again: What are they trying to hide?” he said.
Other women subpoenaed in case
Liss already sat for a nearly eight-hour deposition in Rochester last month, the transcript of which is now the subject of a court battle over whether it should be kept private. Cuomo’s team has circulated the document to some reporters, highlighting the fact Liss says she does not believe the governor sexually harassed her. (She said the same to Gothamist in 2021.)
Meanwhile, attorneys for Azzopardi and former top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa — another co-defendant in the trooper’s suit — are fighting a request by Kaitlin to keep her last name anonymous, as it was in the AG’s report.
Late Tuesday, attorneys for Azzopardi and DeRosa argued that Kaitlin’s full name has already been publicized — filing a court document that included a link to a past letter from Cuomo’s attorney that included Kaitlin’s surname, as well as an image of one of her past tweets, which featured a photo of her face. They used both items as evidence that Kaitlin’s name is already public.
Kaitlin’s attorneys, Zoe Salzman and Nick Bourland, immediately objected. They said it ran afoul of the judge’s previous ruling that documents unveiling Kaitlin’s identity should be filed under seal.
Salzman asked the judge to sanction the attorneys who filed it.
“(T)he defense cannot bootstrap a letter they wrote themselves as a basis to object to Kaitlin’s confidentiality in this case,” Salzman and Bourland wrote.
On Wednesday afternoon, Merkl ordered the filing to be sealed, pending her decision on whether to grant Kaitlin’s request to remain anonymous.
This story has been updated to clarify that Taryn Merkl is a U.S. magistrate judge.
Tagged
new york state
Politics
andrew cuomo
Jon Campbell
Jon Campbell covers the New York State Capitol for WNYC and Gothamist. Prior to that, he covered the Capitol for more than a decade for the USA TODAY Network. He has twice earned the Walter T. Brown Memorial Award, an honor given annually by the Legislative Correspondents Association alumni for outstanding state government coverage. Jon grew up in the Buffalo area and graduated from the University at Albany. Got a tip? Email Jon at [email protected] or Signal at JonCampbellNY.90.
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