Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo speaks at the opening of Pier 76 park in the Manhattan borough of New York City, June 9, 2021.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters
The district attorney’s office for Albany County, New York, has an ongoing criminal investigation into conduct by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been accused of sexually harassing multiple women, the office said Tuesday.
The DA’s office plans to request investigative materials from the state attorney general’s probe of his alleged harassment of 11 women, most of whom work or had worked for state government or related entities.
News of the criminal investigation came hours after Attorney General Letitia James detailed a report substantiating the women’s claims that Cuomo has subjected them to unwanted touching and remarks that make them uncomfortable.
James said the probe concluded that Cuomo “sexually harassed multiple women and in doing so violated federal and state law.”
But the attorney general herself was not making a referral for criminal prosecution or civil penalties against the Democratic governor.
One of those accusers, who worked as an aide to Cuomo, has said that he groped her in his office at the Governor’s Mansion in Albany, the state’s capital city, after summoning her there in late 2020.
That woman’s allegation was reported by someone other than the aide to the Albany Police Department last March, after the first claims of sexual harassment against Cuomo started becoming public
A police spokesman at the time said that the alleged incident may have risen “to the level of a crime,” The New York Times has previously reported.
The Albany DA’s office is responsible for prosecuting people for alleged crimes committed in Albany County.
Cuomo strongly denied the allegations Tuesday, and claimed the probe was biased and infected by politics.
James’ report has sparked new and renewed calls for Cuomo to resign.
President Joe Biden is expected to speak about the report later Tuesday.
Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki said that the White House’s message to uomo’s accusers is that all women who have “lived through this type of experience … deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.”
“I don’t know that anyone could have watched [James’ press conference] this morning and not found the allegations to be abhorrent— I know I certainly did,” Psaki said.
– Additional reporting by CNBC’s Christina Wilkie
