NEW YORK (1010 WINS/AP) – Two more former aides to Gov. Andrew Cuomo accused the governor of inappropriate behavior in reports published this weekend.
Ana Liss, 35, told the Wall Street Journal in a story published Saturday that when she worked as a policy aide to the governor between 2013 and 2015, Cuomo called her “sweetheart,” once kissed her hand and asked personal questions, including whether she had a boyfriend. She said he sometimes greeted her with a hug and a kiss on both cheeks.
Liss said that at a reception at the Executive Mansion in Albany, Cuomo came up and hugged her before kissing her on both cheeks, wrapping his arm around her lower back and grabbing her waist, an encounter that was captured in a photograph.
Liss told the Journal she initially thought of Cuomo’s behavior as harmless, but it grew to bother her. She felt it was patronizing, saying it made her feel like “just a skirt.”
“It’s not appropriate, really, in any setting,” she said. “I wish that he took me seriously.”
Liss said she never made a formal complaint about the governor’s behavior.
Responding to the report, Cuomo senior adviser Rich Azzopardi told the Journal: “Reporters and photographers have covered the governor for 14 years watching him kiss men and women and posing for pictures. At the public open-house mansion reception, there are hundreds of people, and he poses for hundreds of pictures. That’s what people in politics do.”
Karen Hinton, a former press aide to Cuomo in the 1990s, told the Washington Post in a story published Saturday that Cuomo summoned her to a “dimly lit” hotel room in 2000, when he led the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She was a consultant for the agency at the time.
Hinton said Cuomo asked her questions about her personal life and marriage. When she decided to leave, she said he embraced her in a way that was “very long, too long, too tight, too intimate.”
Hinton said she pulled away and that “he pulls me back for another intimate embrace.”
“I thought at that moment it could lead to a kiss, it could lead to other things, so I just pull away again, and I leave,” she said.
Asked by the Post if she considered the encounter harassment, Hinton didn’t explicitly say it was. She described it as a “power play” for “manipulation and control.”
Responding to the Post report, Cuomo’s director of communications, Peter Ajemian, denied the account, saying, “This did not happen.”
“Karen Hinton is a known antagonist of the Governor’s who is attempting to take advantage of this moment to score cheap points with made up allegations from 21 years ago,” Ajemian said in a statement. “All women have the right to come forward and tell their story — however, it’s also the responsibility of the press to consider self-motivation. This is reckless.”
Cuomo’s workplace conduct has been under intense scrutiny in recent days as several women have publicly told of feeling sexually harassed, or at least made to feel demeaned and uncomfortable by the Democrat.
Former adviser Lindsey Boylan, 36, said he made inappropriate comments on her appearance, once kissed her on the lips at the end of a meeting and suggested a game of strip poker as they sat with other aides on a jet flight.
Another former aide, Charlotte Bennett, 25, said Cuomo asked if she ever had sex with older men and made other comments she interpreted as gauging her interest in an affair.
Another woman, who did not work for the state, described Cuomo putting his hands on her face and asking if he could kiss her after they met at a wedding.
In a news conference Wednesday, Cuomo denied ever touching anyone inappropriately, but apologized for behaving in a way that he now realized had upset women he worked with. He said he’d made jokes and asked personal questions in an attempt to be playful and frequently greeted people with hugs and kisses, as his father, Mario Cuomo, had done when he was governor.
“I understand sensitivities have changed. Behavior has changed,” Cuomo said. “I get it and I’m going to learn from it.”
The state's attorney general plans to hire an outside law firm to investigate the sexual harassment allegations. Some lawmakers have called for Cuomo to resign over his workplace behavior, and separate allegations that his administration misled the public about coronavirus fatalities in nursing homes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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