New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday joined a growing chorus of politicians calling for an investigation into sexual harassment allegations made against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Lindsey Boylan, a former aide to Cuomo, in a blog post published on Wednesday accused the governor of sexually harassing her when she worked for his administration from 2015 to 2018.
She wrote that Cuomo kissed her on the mouth without consent, suggested that they played strip poker during a flight, and went “out of his way to touch me on my lower back, arms and legs.”
Photo: AP
Cuomo’s office said in a statement that Boylan’s “claims of inappropriate behavior are quite simply false.”
When Boylan first accused Cuomo of sexual harassment, without providing details, on Twitter in December last year, the 63-year-old governor said it was “just not true.”
“We need a full and independent investigation,” De Blasio said. “This is a very serious charge. We have got to know the truth.”
Tina Tchen, president of the Time’s Up Foundation, which campaigns against sexual harassment, said that the Cuomo administration “should conduct a full and independent investigation into these claims immediately.”
The harassment allegations come as Cuomo faces a growing storm over his handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes in his state.
New York federal prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into whether his administration deliberately concealed the number of deaths in care homes.
His government was forced to revise the number of fatalities up from 8,500 to 15,000, after New York State Attorney General Letitia James said that the administration had underestimated the toll by several thousand.
Cuomo is also facing accusations that he is a bully, after state lawmaker Ron Kim said that the governor vowed to “destroy” him for attacking Cuomo on the nursing home claims.
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