Following allegations of sexual abuse, Andrew Cuomo apologized and said he was “misunderstood” for being “playful”.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo first admitted Sunday that some of his behavior with women was “misinterpreted as unwanted flirtation.” and said he would cooperate with a sexual conduct investigation inappropriate led by the New York attorney general.

In a statement released amid mounting criticism from his own party, the Democrat argued he had never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate proposals. But he said there was joked with some people about their personal life in order to be “playful”.

“Now I understand that my interactions could have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel feelings that I never wanted. I admit that some of the things I said were misinterpreted as unwanted flirtation. If anyone felt that, I’m so sorry, ”said the 63-year-old governor.

He made the comments after the state attorney’s office demanded that Cuomo grant him the power to investigate allegations that he sexually harassed at least two women he worked with.

Cuomo faced accusations from Lindsey Boylan last week, a former state economic development official who said he repeatedly harassed her between 2016 and 2018, at one point giving her an unsolicited kiss on the lips in his Manhattan office.

This weekend, those of Charlotte bennett, 25, who was his executive assistant and health policy advisor until last November, who served as New York Times What the governor asked her uncomfortable questions about her sex life.

He told the American newspaper that Cuomo would have asked her if she was monogamousIf you’ve ever had relationships with older men and were open to relationships with women in your twenties, the harassment you say happened in late last spring, at the height of the fight against coronavirus in the state.

Independent investigation

Initially, the governor indicated that he had ordered an investigation, for which he chose a former federal judge who worked for a long time with one of his former advisers. However, he backed down and left it to the state attorney general, Letitia James, and the judge Janet DiFiore, preside over the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, so that choose who will do the research, as stated in a press release.

James, a Democrat who has at times been an ally of Cuomo but who was elected independently, appears to be emerging as a consensus option to conduct the investigation.

The official on Sunday asked Cuomo to allow his office to conduct the investigation. “Charges of sexual harassment must always be taken seriously,” he said in a statement in which he stressed that the request for an investigation should be made by the governor’s office.

Cuomo’s criticism of his own Democratic counterparts, whose popularity grew during the pandemic, did not wait and one of them came from the mayor of the city, Bill de Blasio, with whom he has endured several clashes, who demanded that the state legislature strip him of the powers he has to act in an emergency.

This claim has already been made by other lawmakers after the first accusation of sexual harassment.

“The state legislature must immediately revoke the governor’s emergency powers. In addition, two completely independent inquiries into the deaths of nursing homes and the worrying allegations of personal misconduct must be carried out immediately, ”he said in a statement.

He spoke about the fact that before the alleged harassment allegations Cuomo was already in the midst of criticism after his senior assistant Melissa DeRosa admit Democratic lawmakers who have delayed the release of data on coronavirus deaths in nursing homes for fear that the Justice Department under the Donald Trump administration could use these numbers “against them.”

A previous report from District Attorney James had already accused the Cuomo administration of “hiding” those numbers in the spring of 2020.

The President of the State Assembly, also a Democrat Carl Heastie for his part leaned in a tweet that it is the Attorney General who appoints the investigator “guarantee its independence ”with which the deputy also agrees Alexandra Ocasio Cortez.

“There must be an independent investigation, not by someone chosen by the governor, but by the attorney general’s office.”, he said.

The two federal senators from New York, Charles Schumer Yes Kirsten gillibrandThey said an independent investigation was essential.

State Senatorl Alessandra Biaggi was more emphatic in his tweet calling for Cuomo’s resignation.

“As a New Yorker, lawmaker, chair of the Ethics Committee, and survivor of sexual abuse, I call for Governor Cuomo to resign,” He also stated in a tweet.

Same, Jen psaki, said President’s press spokesman Joe Biden, in an interview with the “State of the Union” of CNN What President backs “independent” investigation into charges which he described as “serious”, according to New York Times.

(With information from EFE and AP)

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