Governor Andrew Cuomo’s accuser, Charlotte Bennett, said she was tasked with “finding” a girlfriend for him – and a day later impatiently asked if she had done so, according to a newly provoked clip from her bombshell interview.
Bennett said she was called to the governor’s office on June 6, a Saturday – the day after she claimed he made it clear that he wanted to “sleep with me”.
“He asked me a few questions about using his iPhone and then sent me back to wait,” said Bennett on “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell” in a segment that aired on Friday on “CBS This Morning ”.
“And finally, he calls me and asks if I already found a girlfriend for him.”
“I said, ‘Not yet’. I said I was working on it. “
Cuomo’s alleged demand first came when he pulled Bennett, then an executive assistant, into his office to take the dictation – but asked her to turn off the recorder.
“And then he explains that he’s looking for a girlfriend,” she recalled in a part of the interview for CBS that aired on Thursday night. “He is alone. He is tired.”
Bennett, who started working for Cuomo as an initial assistant in January 2019, said he “loved my job” – and therefore could not be lying.
“I really admired you. I admired the governor. He was my mentor – I really saw it that way, ”said Bennett.
Asked by O’Donnell what she had to say to her critics, Bennett said: “It is difficult to share this story when it is true. I can’t imagine what it would be like to sit here and tell you lies. “
She also criticized Cuomo’s recent apology, saying he was not, as she said, joking.
“I wasn’t laughing,” she said. “And he wasn’t laughing.”
On Thursday night, Bennett recalled on the show that the 63-year-old governor asked investigative questions about their sex life when they were alone on June 5.
“I thought, he’s trying to sleep with me. The governor is trying to sleep with me and I am deeply uncomfortable and I have to get out of this room as soon as possible, ”said Bennett.
“What made you think he was trying to sleep with you?” O’Donnell asked.
“Without saying it explicitly, he – he implied that I was old enough for him and that he was lonely,” said Bennett.
O’Donnell asked Bennett if Cuomo was probably “encouraged” by all the “national attention” he received from his instructions on the coronavirus on television.
“Absolutely. I think he felt untouchable in many ways,” she replied.
Bennett also told O’Donnell that she had no doubts about Cuomo’s motives.
“Do you believe he was proposing to you?” O’Donnell asked.
“Yes,” replied Bennett.
“For what?” O’Donnell asked.
“Sex,” replied Bennett.
Bennett – one of three women who made accusations of misconduct against Cuomo – also rejected his qualified apology during a Capitol news conference on Wednesday.
Cuomo said he felt “terrible” and “ashamed” with the growing accusations of sexual harassment against him – while saying that he did not know that these actions were wrong and insisted: “I will not resign”.
“It was not intentional and I really and deeply apologize for it,” he insisted. “I feel terrible about it and, frankly, I’m embarrassed, and that’s not an easy thing to say – but that’s the truth.”
But Cuomo also repeatedly conditioned his apology to the notion that he had inadvertently upset his accusers.
“No offense, but if they were offended, then it was wrong. And if they were offended by that, I apologize. And if they were hurt by that, I apologize. And if they felt pain, I apologize. I apologize, ”he said.
“I was not meant to be. I did not mean that. But if that’s how they felt, that’s all that matters and I apologize. “
But when pressed by a reporter about exactly who he was apologizing for, Cuomo said, “the young woman who worked here, who said I made her feel uncomfortable in the workplace”.
Bennett said “it was not an apology”.
“It is not a question of my feelings. It is a matter of your actions. The fact is, he was sexually harassing me and did not apologize for sexually harassing me. And he can’t even use my name, ”she told O’Donnell of CBS.
More of Bennett’s interview will air Friday night on “CBS Evening News”.
Cuomo and his press secretary have repeatedly denied other sexual harassment charges made by another former aide, Lindsey Boylan, 36, now a Democratic candidate for the Manhattan district presidency.
The allegations by Bennett, Boylan and a third woman – Anna Ruch, 33, who says Cuomo grabbed her face and kissed her without her consent at a wedding reception in Manhattan in 2019 – are subject to an investigation pending by a law firm independent. selected by Attorney General Letitia James.