Andrew M. Cuomo, the Democratic governor of the state of New York accused by the judiciary of sexual violence against 11 women, announced his resignation in a video speech broadcast on TV. “Wasting energy in distractions it’s the last thing the state government should do, and I can’t be the cause, ”he said. “Under the circumstances, the best way I can help is to do a step sideways and ensure that the government returns to govern ”. Cuomo would have to face an attempt to impeachement by the opposition in the Legislative Assembly.
“I’m sorry deeply if I have offended someone, I have been too familiar with people, men and women, – said Cuomo, in the latest public attempt to defend his conduct – but I have not never exceeded the limit with nobody”.
The governor will formally retire from office in two weeks. In the video he claimed to be “a fighter and that his instinct would be to fight” controversy and allegations of sexual assault against him, but that this would only generate “months of controversy policies and legal “. The Deputy Governor of New York will take her place, Kathy Hochul, 62 years old, thus becoming the first female governor of the state. A native of Buffalo, she was first elected Deputy Governor of New York in 2014 and won re-election alongside Cuomo in 2018.
But the signal that theit was Cuomo it was now setting it had already arrived Sunday evening, with the sudden resignation of the faithful one Melissa DeRosa: more than an assistant, he was his right hand, his strategist, his trusted friend who was perhaps the only one to confide in and vent his anger and frustration. But Melissa was also a bit complicit, and for this she ended up among the cards of investigations conducted on behalf of the New York State Attorney General, Letitia James.
Since the emergence of the first accusations, in fact, he would have tried to cover, to cover up, to protect the governor’s reputation, even helping him to intimidate and take revenge on those who accused him. Not only that: Melissa would also have played a leading role in Cuomo’s efforts to hide i data real on deaths from Covid-19 in retirement homes in upstate New York, an incident that is being investigated by both federal and state authorities. In short, the impression is that the woman’s step backwards was the last attempt to save himself together with his now former boss.
According to theinvestigation still in progress, the governor would have tried to touch, kiss and hug several women, in some cases making some comments defined as “deeply humiliating, annoying, offensive and inappropriate” by those who were the subject. Among the women there would be some current and former employees of the state of New York. It also appears that Cuomo himself and other members of his staff have had vengeful attitudes against at least one of the women who accused him, and who created a work environment defined as “hostile”.
The 165-page investigation was done listening to 179 people and consulting more than 74 thousand different documents, including emails and photographs. Joon H. Kim, one of the lawyers who carried out the investigation, said that according to him these are not “isolated incidents but parts of a general scheme”. From the beginning, Cuomo had responded to the accusations by declaring that he had “never touched anyone in an inappropriate way”.
Only from early February 2021 had been be the women to report him for sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior: in February the governor had issued a statement in which he said that some of his comments in the workplace “may have been indelicate or too personal”. On March 3 it was apologized publicly, arguing that it was not his intention to make the women involved uncomfortable.
Andrew Cuomo is 63 years old and the son of Mario Cuomo, a very famous exponent of the Democrats and governor of New York three times between 1983 and 1994, years in which the state and the city of New York re-emerged after a long period of decline. Andrew Cuomo is also at his third consecutive term as Democratic governor, due to expire in 2022.
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