NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- An aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo who has accused him of groping her inside the Executive Mansion in Albany provided new details about the alleged incident in the first interview she has given since her claims were made public.
An unnamed female aide last month claimed Cuomo reached under her blouse and groped her after calling her into his office to help with a cell phone-related issue, the Times Union of Albany first reported.
In an interview with the Times Union published on Wednesday, the woman claimed Cuomo specifically asked one of his top executive assistants to send her in to help him with his phone, despite the fact that she was not at the Executive Mansion at the time.
After driving a “short distance” to the mansion, the aide went into Cuomo’s office, she said. The aide then claims Cuomo put his hand under her shirt and grabbed one of her breasts over her bra.
“He went for it, and I kind of like, was, ‘Oh, the door is right there,’” the aide told the outlet. “I was mortified that a woman who works here is going to come in and see…. I was terrified of that happening, because that’s not who I am, and that’s not what I’m here for.”
“I said to him, I said, ‘You’re going to get us in trouble,’” she claimed. “I didn’t know what else to say…. It was pretty much like, ‘What are you doing?’ That’s when he slammed the door [shut]. He said, ‘I don’t care.’”
“I was just so confused and so taken aback by it…. He never said anything, which was odd,” she went on to say. “I remember going downstairs and escorting myself out and going to my car and sitting there for a second and going, ‘OK, I have to now go back into the Capitol, go back to my desk and do my job and pretend that, like, that didn’t just happen.’”
In her interview with the Times Union, the aide also claimed Cuomo groped her on New Year’s Eve in 2019, after asking her to take a selfie with him.
“I remember standing up in his upstairs office, right outside his bedroom. I was holding up the phone. I was nervous,” she told the outlet. “As the phone is up I feel him, like not just sliding his hands, he’s like rubbing my butt cheek, but not saying anything. That was the first blatant move.”
The aide also alleged Cuomo sexually harassed her on other occasions.
Approximately a year ago, the governor “looked at me… and said, ‘Oh, if you were single, the things that I would do to you,’” the aide claimed.
Cuomo’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to the Times Union’s request for comment on the aide’s new allegations.
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