Two additional women accused New York Governor Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment on Saturday, including a former press officer who detailed an uncomfortable hug in a dimly lit hotel room and an assistant who said he made her feel “just a skirt”.
Former press officer Karen Hinton told the Washington Post that Cuomo, then head of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, forced her into a “very long, very long, very tight, very intimate” embrace in a poorly lit Los Angeles hotel room in December 2000.
The married press officer stepped back, but said “he pulls me back into another intimate hug”.
“At that moment I thought it could lead to a kiss, it could lead to other things, so I just walk away again and go,” said Hinton, who is married to lobbyist Howard Glaser, a longtime Cuomo ally who worked as his director of state operations and senior policy advisor until 2014.
A representative of the governor denied the charge, telling the Washington Post the incident “did not happen”.
“Karen Hinton is a well-known antagonist to the governor who is trying to take advantage of this moment to score cheap points with allegations made up 21 years ago,” said Peter Ajemian.
“All women have the right to come forward and tell their stories,” he said, although he called Hinton’s accusation “reckless”.
Meanwhile, Ana Liss, a policy and operations advisor who worked for Cuomo from 2013 to 2015, told the Wall Street Journal the governor also acted inappropriately with her, calling her “dear” and asking if she had a boyfriend.
She detailed a May 2014 meeting with the governor at Albany’s executive mansion, where she said the governor called her a girlfriend, hugged her, kissed her cheeks, put her arm around her lower back and grabbed her waist as she stood. turned to take a photo by a photographer.
“It is not really appropriate in any environment,” she said.
Cuomo’s spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, defended the behavior as part of the course at public receptions.
“Reporters and photographers covered the governor for 14 years, watching him kiss men and women and pose for pictures,” said Azzopardi. “At the mansion’s public reception, there are hundreds of people and he poses for hundreds of photos. This is what people in politics do ”.
Liss and Hinton are two of the five women who accuse the governor of sexual harassment.
Lindsey Boylan, Cuomo’s former deputy secretary for economic development and special adviser, published on Wednesday an essay detailing the alleged sexual harassment she endured while working for the governor, including unwanted kisses and touches.
She wrote in the essay that Cuomo, with the help of leading advisers, “created a culture within her administration where sexual harassment and bullying are so widespread that they are not only tolerated, but expected”.
She also detailed an increasingly uncomfortable relationship she developed with the governor, in which he sought her out and set up individual meetings with her.
Boylan recounted a flight she shared with the governor at an event in October 2017 in which Cuomo allegedly said, “Let’s play strip poker”.
On another occasion, Boylan said the pair met for a meeting when Cuomo allegedly kissed her.
Days later, former health policy advisor Charlotte Bennett claimed that the governor harassed her in the spring of 2020, according to the New York Times. Bennett, 25, said Cuomo asked intrusive questions about her sex life, including an incident on June 5, during which the governor asked if she was monogamous and had sex with older men.
Cuomo said that “he never advanced towards Mrs. Bennett, nor did I intend to act inappropriately”. However, the governor did not deny having made the statements in question.
He also denied Boylan’s claims.
Anna Ruch, a former Biden campaign worker who did not work for Cuomo, accused the governor of giving him an unwanted kiss on the cheek at a wedding in 2019. She said the action left her “confused, shocked and embarrassed”.
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Monday, after Boylan and Bennett had spoken, that their office had received a referral from the Cuomo administration, allowing for an independent investigation into their allegations of harassment.