Cuomo is accused of sexual harassment by a 2nd former aide

Written by Jesse McKinley
A second former aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo is accusing him of sexual harassment, saying that he requested her questions on her intercourse life, whether or not she was monogamous in her relationships and if she had ever had intercourse with older males.
The aide, Charlotte Bennett, who was an govt assistant and well being coverage adviser within the Cuomo administration till she left in November, advised The New York Times that the governor had harassed her late final spring, in the course of the peak of the state’s battle towards the coronavirus.
Bennett, 25, stated probably the most unsettling episode occurred June 5, when she was alone with Cuomo in his state Capitol workplace. In a sequence of interviews this previous week, she stated the governor had requested her quite a few questions on her private life, together with whether or not she thought age made a distinction in romantic relationships, and had stated that he was open to relationships with girls of their 20s — feedback she interpreted as clear overtures to a sexual relationship.
Cuomo stated in a press release to the Times on Saturday that he believed he had been appearing as a mentor and had “never made advances toward Ms. Bennett, nor did I ever intend to act in any way that was inappropriate.” He stated he had requested an unbiased assessment of the matter and requested that New Yorkers await the findings “before making any judgments.”

Bennett stated that in the course of the June encounter, the governor, 63, additionally complained to her about being lonely in the course of the pandemic, mentioning that he “can’t even hug anyone” earlier than turning the main target to Bennett. She stated that Cuomo requested her, “Who did I last hug?”
Bennett stated she had tried to dodge the query by responding that she missed hugging her mother and father. “And he was, like, ‘No, I mean like really hugged somebody?’” she stated.
Cuomo by no means tried to the touch her, Bennett stated, however the message of all the episode was unmistakable to her.
“I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me, and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared,” Bennett stated. “And was wondering how I was going to get out of it and assumed it was the end of my job.”
Bennett stated she had disclosed the interplay with Cuomo to his chief of employees, Jill DesRosiers, lower than every week later and was transferred to a different job, as a well being coverage adviser, with an workplace on the other facet of the Capitol, quickly after that. Bennett stated she had additionally given a prolonged assertion to a particular counsel to the governor, Judith Mogul, towards the top of June.
Bennett stated she finally determined to not insist on an investigation as a result of she was completely happy in her new job and “wanted to move on.” No motion was taken towards the governor.
In his assertion, Cuomo referred to as Bennett a “hardworking and valued member” of his employees with “every right to speak out.” He stated that Bennett had spoken to him about being a sexual assault survivor — an expertise about which she had been open up to now — and that he had tried to be supportive and useful. “The last thing I would ever have wanted was to make her feel any of the things that are being reported,” the governor stated.
The governor didn’t deny that he requested Bennett private questions; he stated within the assertion that he would haven’t any additional remark till the assessment concluded.
Bennett’s account follows one other detailed accusation, printed Wednesday, by Lindsey Boylan, a former state financial improvement official who stated that Cuomo had harassed her on a number of events from 2016 to 2018, at one level giving her an unsolicited kiss on the lips at his Manhattan workplace.
Cuomo’s workplace has referred to as Boylan’s accusations unfaithful, however they’ve nonetheless prompted requires investigations into her claims. In addition to the 2 girls’s harassment allegations, the governor, a third-term Democrat, is confronting important political fallout over his dealing with of the state’s nursing properties in the course of the pandemic.
After seeing Boylan element her accusations towards Cuomo, Bennett shared Boylan’s account on Twitter, suggesting that folks learn it in the event that they wished a real image of “what it’s like to work for the Cuomo” administration.
The Times contacted Bennett, and he or she agreed to narrate her personal account of harassment. She stated she felt an obligation to different victims of sexual harassment and wished to counter the best way Cuomo “wields his power.”
Bennett stated she had advised her mother and father and pals concerning the trade with the governor across the time that it occurred, in addition to about her rising discomfort with having to work carefully with him, and had stored textual content messages from that interval.
The Times reviewed the messages and confirmed their contents with those that obtained them. Bennett additionally retained textual content messages from DesRosiers and Mogul that alluded to their conferences in June however didn’t point out the subject material.
“I have no problem with what they did,” Bennett stated of DesRosiers and Mogul, describing each girls as sympathetic to her considerations. “I have a problem with what the governor did.”
Bennett was employed by the administration in early 2019, figuring out of the governor’s Manhattan workplace as a briefer, an entry-level place. She had graduated from Hamilton College in 2017, the place she was energetic in girls’s points and based a sexual misconduct activity drive. She stated her personal expertise in surviving a sexual assault had prompted her to “help sexual assault survivors be heard and enforce victims’ rights,” in accordance with a bulletin on the faculty’s web site.
By mid-2019, Bennett had been promoted to senior briefer and govt assistant after an interview with Cuomo. The two turned pleasant, she stated, they usually bonded over shared connections with Westchester County: At the time, he was residing with Sandra Lee, a celeb chef, in Mount Kisco; Bennett was residing together with her mother and father in a neighboring hamlet. She talked about to Cuomo that she had performed middle-school soccer towards considered one of his daughters, who’re additionally of their mid-20s.
“We got along really well,” she stated of the governor. Cuomo, she stated, would typically ask questions on her relationship life that she stated appeared inappropriate however not essentially unmanageable.
“I saw him more as a father figure,” she stated. “I wasn’t thinking about it as anything sexual.”
In January 2020, Bennett despatched her mom a textual content. “Had a really long convo with Gov today,” she wrote, outlining a two-hour dialog about quite a few matters, together with her profession targets.
“He had a lot to say and was very emotional and serious but also asked a lot of questions,” she wrote, including, “He got emotional. Not me.”
Bennett’s mom, Jessica, confirmed the textual content, and her feeling, on the time, that it was reassuring that the governor appeared to be taking up the position of a mentor.
Charlotte Bennett stated she was requested in late March to start working in Albany as a part of the state’s COVID-19 response effort. Two months later, in mid-May, the governor’s notion of their relationship seemingly started to vary, she stated.
On May 15, she stated she arrived on the Capitol round 7 a.m. to search out Cuomo already at work. Bennett was there to drop off some briefing papers, however Cuomo was chatty, asking about her love life and, in a gossipy approach, whether or not she was concerned with different members of the governor’s employees. She memorialized the trade in a number of texts to a different Cuomo employees member that the Times reviewed.
Bennett stated she had talked about a speech she was scheduled to present to Hamilton college students about her expertise as a survivor of sexual assault. She stated she had been stunned by Cuomo’s seeming fixation on that ingredient of her life expertise.
“The way he was repeating, ‘You were raped and abused and attacked and assaulted and betrayed,’ over and over again while looking me directly in the eyes was something out of a horror movie,” she wrote in a second textual content to her buddy. “It was like he was testing me.”
In retrospect, Bennett stated, she seen the May 15 assembly “as the turning point in our relationship.”
“Anything before it I now see differently,” she stated. “I now understand that as grooming.”
Three weeks later, Bennett stated, she was summoned to Cuomo’s second-floor workplace and was requested to take dictation with one other aide.
After the second aide left, Cuomo and Bennett continued their work. When they completed, she stated, he requested her to show off her recorder, and he started a winding dialog that touched on the Black Lives Matter protests and his every day information conferences.
But, Bennett stated, the governor additionally began to ask questions on her private life, together with whether or not she was romantically concerned, whether or not she was monogamous in her relationships and whether or not she had ever had intercourse with older males.
A sequence of textual content exchanges with a feminine buddy from that afternoon, June 5, comported with Bennett’s recounting of the story this week. In the texts, she advised her buddy that she was shaken and upset by the episode and anxious about even writing it down.
Bennett stated she spoke to Cuomo’s chief of employees, DesRosiers, on June 10, 5 days after the episode.
She stated the assembly, in DesRosiers’ workplace, had lasted about 10 minutes. Bennett stated she had recounted her interplay with Cuomo, and he or she recalled that DesRosiers had requested a number of questions, been apologetic and requested to talk to her once more in two days.
In a textual content message despatched to a buddy after the assembly, Bennett stated DesRosiers had stated, “How can we do this?” asking whether or not she wished to remain within the govt department or transfer to a different a part of the state authorities.
When Bennett’s buddy requested what that meant, Bennett defined that an outdoor job would nonetheless be with the administration, however “just not interacting with him.”
She additionally advised her buddy, in the identical sequence of texts, that she trusted DesRosiers however was anxious about Cuomo’s response: “I just said I didn’t want him to find out and get mad.”

Two days later, on June 12, DesRosiers advised Bennett she could be transferred to a brand new place as a well being coverage adviser, nonetheless working within the govt department, however in a unique a part of the Capitol. Her new job was introduced in a June 17 e mail to Department of Health officers. “Welcome Charlotte!” it concluded.
Later that month, Bennett met with Mogul, a particular counsel to the governor, and repeated her claims. She stated, nevertheless, that she quickly determined to “let this go and move on.”
In a press release Saturday, Beth Garvey, one other particular counsel to the governor, stated that “Ms. Bennett’s concerns were treated with sensitivity and respect and in accordance with applicable law and policy.” She characterised the switch to a well being coverage place as fulfilling “a long-standing interest” of Bennett’s.
Of Bennett, Garvey stated, “she was consulted regarding the resolution and expressed satisfaction and appreciation for the way in which it was handled.” Barbara Jones, a former federal decide in Manhattan, will lead the surface assessment into the matter, Garvey stated.

Bennett left state authorities final fall, and he or she now lives and works in a neighboring state. She stated that her anger about what had occurred had continued to percolate and had led to her departure.
“His presence was suffocating,” she stated. “I was thinking that I could recover and have distance, but that is so naive.”