The investigation opened by New York state legislators on former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, initiated earlier this year for a possible impeachment process, corroborates that he sexually harassed his workers, among other conclusions made public this Monday.
Cuomo resigned in August after the State Prosecutor’s Office published a report in which it claimed that he harassed eleven women, most of them employees and former employees, pressured by pressure from his fellow party members and the threat of impeachment for which he was being investigated by the State Assembly.
The 63-page report released Monday includes that investigation by the Assembly, whose Judicial Committee hired an outside firm in March to see if there was enough evidence to remove the former governor.
The investigation concludes that there are "overwhelming evidence" that Cuomo committed "sexual harassment" at work, but it also abounds in other criticisms of the former governor, such as that he used public resources to "write, publish and promote" his book on pandemic management, and that "it was not completely transparent" with the number of nursing home residents who died from covid-19.
The report focused on allegations of sexual harassment by a former employee, Britanny Commisso, who reported it to the authorities, and an unidentified member of her security group, on which it states that "meet the definition of sexual harassment under New York State law".
Regarding his book, called "Leadership lessons from the covid-19 pandemic" and for which he received more than 5 million dollars, the investigation concludes that state officials worked on the project in a way "not voluntary" during their working hours, which subtracted time from their duty in managing the pandemic.
It is also mentioned that an official of the executive chamber led by Cuomo invested a "important time" in the book and served as "key contact" between the former governor and his publisher, and is the same person involved in the incomplete publication of data on the elderly who died from coronavirus, which generated controversy.
The former governor ordered a report to "fight criticism" for its decision to allow nursing homes to accept patients with coronavirus, and instead of citing a figure of 10,000 deaths collected in "scientific drafts", opted for another of 6,500 that strictly reflected the deaths in the facilities and not outside them, for example in hospitals.
"Witnesses have stated that the same senior executive chamber official who was the key point for the book made the decision to only include deaths in (nursing home) facilities in the report.", indicates the document.
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