Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily press meeting on the COVID-19 pandemic at the MTA New York City Transit Corona Maintenance Facility in Queens, May 2, 2020.
Lev Radin | Pacific Press | LightRocket via Getty Images
On Wednesday, a former aide to the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, accused the governor of kissing her without her consent while she worked as an undersecretary for economic development in 2018.
Lindsey Boylan, now a candidate for president of the Manhattan district, posted a detailed account of his allegations against his former boss on a blog. Boylan made public his allegations of harassment against the governor in December, although she did not elaborate at the time.
Cuomo’s press secretary, Caitlin Girouard, said in a statement: “Boylan’s claims about inappropriate behavior are simply untrue.”
In the same press release from Cuomo’s office, four other members of his team contested a single detail of Boylan’s account. Boylan wrote that while on a plane from an event in western New York in 2017 with the governor, a press officer and a state police officer, Cuomo told her, “Let’s play strip poker.” Cuomo’s office released a record of all October 2017 flights and said “there was no flight on which Lindsey was alone with the governor, a single press officer and a NYS soldier”.
The record shows that Boylan was on several flights with the governor and other members of his team. But the four members of the Cuomo team said in a statement included in the statement: “We were on each of those October flights and that conversation did not happen.”
The new details emerged while Cuomo is battling charges of mishandling data and policies for nursing homes at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in New York last year.
The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes in the state. New York Attorney General Letitia James, also a Democrat from Cuomo, released a report last month saying the state had underreported Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes by up to 50%.
Cuomo’s behavior toward colleagues came under renewed scrutiny after New York lawmaker Ron Kim accused the governor of promising to “destroy him” after Kim criticized Cuomo’s handling of outbreaks in nursing homes. Cuomo’s senior adviser denied that Kim’s claim is true.
In his blog post on Wednesday, Boylan referred to Kim’s accusations and expanded on his own, including screenshots of e-mails from his time working for the governor.
Lindsey Boylan attends the 9th Annual Elly Award, organized by the Women’s Forum of New York on June 17, 2019 in New York City.
Mike Coppola | Getty Images
Boylan said that after meeting the governor for the first time in 2016, his boss told her that Cuomo had a “crush” on her. She said she later complained to friends that he “would endeavor to touch me on the lower back, arms and legs”.
She also claimed that Cuomo “made unflattering comments about the weight of fellow women” and “ridiculed them about their romantic relationships and other significant people”.
“I tried to excuse your behavior,” wrote Boylan. “I said to myself ‘these are just words’. But that changed after an individual meeting with the governor to update him on economic and infrastructure projects. We were in his New York office on Third Avenue. When I got up to leave and walked towards an open door, he stepped in front of me and kissed me on the mouth. I was in shock, but I kept walking. “
Boylan wrote that he feared that a co-worker had seen the kiss and wrote: “The idea that someone might think that I occupied my high position because of the governor’s ‘passion’ for me was more degrading than the kiss itself . “
Boylan said he announced his resignation in September 2018.
She also shared a screenshot of a 2016 email that appeared to be from Stephanie Benton, director of the governor’s office, saying that Cuomo suggested that Boylan look for pictures of his alleged ex-girlfriend because “You could be sisters. Except that are the most beautiful sister. “
She accused high-ranking women in Cuomo’s office of creating a culture that “normalized” her boss’s behavior, calling by name adviser Melissa DeRosa. She said that two other women had contacted her about her own experiences with the governor after she posted her original allegations online in December.
“One described how she lived in constant fear, afraid of what would happen to her if she rejected the governor’s advances,” wrote Boylan. “The other said that she was instructed by the governor to alert officials who upset him that their jobs could be at risk. They both told me that they are afraid to speak.”
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