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Albany County District Attorney David Soares said in a statement
on Tuesday that his office had investigated the complaint made
by former Cuomo aide Brittany Commisso and that he found her to
be "cooperative and credible."
"I, like most New Yorkers, remain deeply troubled by allegations
like the ones at issue here," his statement said. "Such conduct
has no place in government or in any workplace."
Cuomo, a Democrat who ran New York for a decade, resigned in
August after a state investigation concluded that he sexually
harassed 11 women, most of them state employees.
Commisso, then a Cuomo aide in her early 30s, said Cuomo, 64,
groped her breast at the Executive Mansion in Albany in 2020. In
October, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple filed a criminal
complaint in court that charged Cuomo with forcible touching.
The complaint appeared to take even the prosecutor by surprise.
He asked that Cuomo's initial court appearance be postponed to
Jan. 7, saying Apple had acted unilaterally and that the
sheriff's complaint was "potentially defective."
Cuomo's lawyer Rita Glavin did not respond to requests for
comment. A spokeswoman for the sheriff declined to comment.
Cuomo has said he has never touched anyone inappropriately and
that his efforts to be a friendly boss may have been mistaken
for flirting.
Commisso expressed disappointment about the decision by the
Albany County district attorney. "I think it's deterring women
from coming forward," she told the New York Post on Tuesday.
Her lawyer, Brian Premo, said Commisso intended to pursue a
civil case against Cuomo.
Commisso's complaint was the most serious individual case
discussed in the state attorney general's report that led to
Cuomo's downfall, although news reports said the U.S. Justice
Department began investigating whether there was a pattern of
Cuomo harassing female employees.
Other county prosecutors have investigated some of the other
individual complaints and declined to bring charges.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Additional reporting by Kanishka
Singh; Editing by Howard Goller and Jonathan Oatis)
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