Republican US Representative Elise Stefanik called New York Governor Andrew Cuomo a “criminal sexual predator” and said he must “immediately resign” over former aide’s sexual harassment allegations.
The former deputy secretary for economic development Lindsey Boylan, who also acted as special adviser to Cuomo, accused him of unwanted kissing and touching in a new essay.
“Governor Cuomo has earned his title as Worst Governor in America, and now every New Yorker knows that he is a criminal sexual predator,” Stefanik wrote in a statement.
“I have served in Congress during the height of the #MeToo movement leading to resignations and retirements of my colleagues. Sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the workplace is not a political issue, it is about right and wrong. Governor Cuomo must immediately resign.”
“Sadly, much of the media in the state either ignored this matter or chose to report the sexist character and professional smears of Ms. Boylan by Governor Cuomo’s taxpayer-funded staff,” she added.
In the online essay, Boylan described an encounter in December 2016, alleging that Cuomo arranged through a handler to meet her in his Albany office, to which she agreed reluctantly.
She said that the governor gave her a tour around his office, and “smirked” as he showed off a cigar box that he said was given to him by former President Bill Clinton while he served as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Prior to the encounter, other staffers warned him to “be careful around the Governor,” and she interpreted the incident as that to be an innuendo referencing the affair between Clinton and his then-intern Monica Lewinsky in the mid-1990s.
She added that his behavior “was all so normalized — particularly by Melissa DeRosa and other top women around him — that only now do I realize how insidious his abuse was.”
Press secretary Caitlin Girouard denied the allegations in Cuomo’s behalf, calling Boylan’s claims as “quite simply false.”