NYers don’t buy denial
No Emmy Award here. Gov. Cuomo’s partial “apology” over the sexual-harassment claims leveled against him by three women appears to have bombed.
Following his mea culpa in a press conference on Wednesday, a majority of New York voters — 54 percent — now believes Cuomo sexually harassed two former staffers, an Emerson College/WPIX-TV/News Nation survey revealed on Thursday.
An Emerson poll conducted earlier this week had 38 percent of voters saying Cuomo mistreated the women.
Meanwhile, the newer Emerson survey found 41 percent believed his apology was sincere, 41 percent believed it wasn’t, and the rest were unaware or had no opinion.
The three-term Democrat’s popularity is plunging amid the sexual-harassment allegations and the monthslong scandal over coronavirus nursing-home deaths.
A plurality of voters, 43 percent, now believes Cuomo should resign — up from 37 percent earlier in the week — while 34 percent say he should not. The rest were undecided.
Nearly half — 46 percent — said the scandals would affect Cuomo’s ability to govern amid the pandemic and budget and economic challenges, up from 39 percent earlier this week.
Cuomo’s chances for a fourth term next year could be imperiled as only a third of voters would like to re-elect him, down from 36 percent from earlier this week.
Meanwhile, a Quinnipiac Poll also released Thursday spelled similar doom for Cuomo.
Nearly four out of five New York voters surveyed in the poll believe the sexual-harassment allegations leveled against Cuomo are “very serious” or “somewhat serious.” And 59 percent said were not satisfied with his explanations and apologies.
Gov. Cuomo’s aides disregarded his executive order requiring formal investigations of sexual-harassment complaints against state employees — when it came to a complaint against their boss, according to a report on Thursday.
Under terms of the order, a June complaint against Cuomo by thenexecutive assistant Charlotte Bennett, 25, should have been referred to the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations, the Albany Times Union said, citing unidentified sources familiar with the process.
Instead, the matter was handled by Beth Garvey, Cuomo’s special counsel and senior adviser, the report said.
The executive order, which Cuomo signed in August 2018 and which went into effect the following Dec. 1 made the GOER “responsible for conducting all investigations into employment-related discrimination complaints.”
The state said the move would “promote more effective, complete and timely investigation of complaints of employment-related protected class discrimination in agencies and departments over which the Governor has executive authority.”
“These investigations include complaints filed by employees, contractors, interns and other persons engaged in employment at these agencies and departments concerning discrimination, retaliation and harassment under Federal and New York State law, Executive Orders and policies of the State of New York,” according to the GOER Web site.
In a report published Saturday, Bennett said she notified Cuomo’s chief of staff, Jill DesRosiers, within a week of a June 5 meeting during which Cuomo, 63, allegedly sexually harassed her by asking questions that included whether she’d had sex with older men.
“I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me, and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared,” she told The New York Times.
In a statement issued in response to the Times’ report, Garvey said, “Ms. Bennett’s concerns were treated with sensitivity and respect and in accordance with applicable law and policy.”