Former ABC News producer Shelly Ross, who previously accused Chris Cuomo of sexually harassing her, said Tuesday that CNN's suspension of anchor Chris Cuomo was not sufficient enough to hold him accountable following revelations that he was more involved in his brother's defense regarding sexual harassment allegations than initially realized.
"There is more to accountability than a suspension," Ross told Fox News. "Chris Cuomo has always maintained he was not an adviser, he was a brother. He lied to CNN and his viewers. He needs to publicly acknowledge his wrongdoing to women, to victims of sexual harassment, assault and gender bias, to his colleagues, to the other journalists he compromised or tried to, and to the viewers he misled."
She slammed CNN over its statement announcing Cuomo was "indefinitely" suspended, saying the word was "meaningless" to the network.
"When he’s invited back, he still should be assigned a series on sexual harassment and ethics in the workplace," Ross said.
She also said that she does not expect the "Cuomo Primetime" anchor to be terminated because of "CNN's great depth of forgiveness of sex offenses."
Ross wrote a guest essay in The New York Times in September alleging that Cuomo squeezed her butt at a work party in 2005, when the two of them worked at ABC News, and included a screenshot of the apology email he had sent to her following the incident.
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Calls for Cuomo's firing ramped up Monday after newly-released documents revealed he was more involved in the defense of his brother, disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), amid sexual harassment allegations made against the former governor than the CNN anchor previously disclosed to viewers.
Transcripts from his interview with investigators from New York Attorney General's office showed that Cuomo admitted to contacting media sources to find information about his brother's new accusers who have not yet publicly come forward.
"When asked, I would reach out to sources, other journalists, to see if they had heard of anybody else coming out," Cuomo told investigators, contradicting claims he made on his show in August, when he said he had "never made calls to the press about my brother's situation."
And just three days after The New York Times published the story about Anna Ruch, who accused the governor at the time of sexually harassing her at a wedding reception in 2019, the CNN host texted Melissa DeRosa, a top Andrew Cuomo aide, that he had "a lead on the wedding girl."
In a separate conversation, DeRosa texted Cuomo, "Rumor going around from politico 1-2 more ppl coming out tomorrow," before asking him if he could check his sources, to which Cuomo replied, "on it." He later wrote back that "No one has heard that yet."
He also looked into the progress of journalist Ronan Farrow's reporting about accusations made against Andrew Cuomo and then provided his findings to the governor's inner circle.
The transcript from investigators' interview with Democratic strategist and Andrew Cuomo ally Lis Smith also revealed that the CNN anchor had sent her documents about one of the governor's accusers, Charlotte Bennett, and her "time in college."
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