NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – The unnamed aide who filed a criminal complaint against Gov. Andrew Cuomo alleging he groped her has made her first public appearance in an interview with “CBS This Morning.”
Brittany Commisso, who remained anonymous up until now, told CBS News that filing the criminal complaint against Cuomo “was the right thing to do.”
“The governor needs to be held accountable,” she said in the interview, which aired in full on Monday.
She said the Democratic governor groped her for the first time on Dec. 31, 2019. According to Commisso, Cuomo suggested the two of them take a selfie together.
“He was to my left. I was on the right. With my right hand, I took the selfie,” Commisso, now 32, said in a joint interview with CBS and The Times Union of Albany. “I then felt while taking the selfie, his hand go down my back onto my butt, and he started rubbing it. Not sliding it. Not, you know, quickly brushing over it — rubbing my butt.”
Commisso, who began working as an executive assistant in the governor’s office in 2017, said this made her so nervous that her hands began to shake, making it difficult for her to even take the picture.
“I was embarrassed,” she said. “Not only embarrassed for what was going on, I was embarrassed that a governor wanted a selfie and I couldn’t take it. I was so nervous. I remember looking at them, and when he said, ‘Can I see them?’ I showed him them. And he said, ‘Oh, those aren’t — those aren’t good.’”
The attention from Cuomo was not normal friendliness, as the governor has characterized it, Commisso said. “Maybe to him, he thought this was normal. But to me and the other women that he did this to, it was not normal. It was not welcomed and it was certainly not consensual.”
When asked if accountability meant him being charged, she said, “What he did to me was a crime, he broke the law.”
She said she waited to publicly have her name attached to the allegations because she was fearful of retaliation and wanted to protect her daughter.
"After a couple of months and processing this whole thing, I do want her to know that she has a voice,” Commisso said of her daughter. “I never want her to be afraid to speak. I never want her to be afraid of any person in power, a man or a woman.”
Commisso’s complaint, filed this week, is the first known instance where a woman has made an official report with a law enforcement agency over alleged misconduct by the governor.
In state Attorney General Letitia James’ report on sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo, Commisso said the governor reached under her shirt and fondled her when they were alone in a room at the Executive Mansion last year.
She told investigators with the AG’s office that Cuomo also once rubbed her rear end while they were posing together for a photo.
The attorney general’s report describes a series of times Cuomo allegedly acted inappropriately with Commisso, referred to as Executive Assistant #1, culminating with the groping encounter at the mansion in November 2020.
According to the report, Cuomo pulled her in for a hug as she prepared to leave the governor’s office at the mansion. Told that “you’re going to get us in trouble,” Cuomo replied, “I don’t care,” and slammed the door shut. He slid his hand up her blouse, and grabbed her breast over her bra, according to her account.
Cuomo’s lawyer, Rita Glavin, has said the allegation was fabricated.
“He is 63 years old. He has spent 40 years in public life, and for him to all of the sudden be accused of a sexual assault of an executive assistant that he really doesn’t know doesn’t pass muster,” Glavin said.
Albany Sheriff Craig Apple said Saturday that Cuomo could face misdemeanor charges if investigators substantiate the criminal complaint.
Cuomo has denied touching any women inappropriately and said the groping encounter never happened.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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