On Friday night, news broke that an eighth woman has made accusations against Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The woman, Alyssa McGrath, is the first current aide to speak out.
Breaking News: Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now accused of harassment by a current aide, who said he ogled her body, remarked on her looks and made suggestive comments. https://t.co/hqDJZIoX9L
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 19, 2021
McGrath told the New York Times about her allegations she made against Cuomo, which the outlet described as "a series of unsettling interactions."
While Cuomo's sixth accuser is also a current aide, that woman has not come forward publicly. The incident is being handled by the Albany police, as it may constitute a crime.
McGrath also referenced this accuser, a co-worker of hers, with the New York Times reporting that:
Ms. McGrath said that the aide described the encounter in detail to her after it was made public in a report in The Times Union of Albany last week.
“She froze when he started doing that stuff to her,” Ms. McGrath said, adding, “But who are you going to tell?”
She added that the co-worker, who has not been publicly identified, told her that the governor had asked her not to talk about the alleged incident, knowing that the two women regularly spoke and texted about their interactions with Mr. Cuomo.
“He told her specifically not to tell me,” Ms. McGrath said.
The reporting continues to note that:
In several interviews conducted over the past week, Ms. McGrath described a pattern of the governor mixing flirtatious banter with more personal comments, as well as a subtle and persistent cultivation of competitive relationships between female co-workers in his office. It was something she said was compounded and protected by a demand for secrecy, and normalized inside the governor’s inner circle.
Ms. McGrath did not accuse the governor of making sexual contact, though she said that she believed that his actions amounted to sexual harassment.
Over the last three years, Ms. McGrath said, the governor had seemingly fostered an unusual work triangle with her and her friend, the co-worker he allegedly groped, blending a professional relationship with unwanted attention. There was paternalistic patter, but also a commandeering, sometimes invasive physicality.
McGrath "does not work directly for" the governor, but the claims are all the more chilling then, with regards to how McGrath said she was selected. McGrath "said that she and her co-worker were commonly pulled from the pool of executive chamber assistants to work weekends and at the mansion. Many assistants in the chamber are women, often decades younger than Mr. Cuomo."
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