NEW YORK — A former aide to ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo filed suit against him and former top administration officials Wednesday, alleging he tried to groom her for sex and aggressively retaliated when she spoke up about it.
The suit filed by Charlotte Bennett, one of nearly a dozen women whose allegations prompted Cuomo’s resignation last year, in Manhattan Federal Court accuses Cuomo of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and retaliation.
Bennett, hired by Cuomo’s office in January 2019 when she was 23, reiterates previously public claims that the former governor regularly subjected her to unwanted sexual comments and assigning her “humiliating” tasks.
It describes Cuomo as once telling the young aide he was “lonely” and wanted a girlfriend who lived in Albany over age 21.
“Throughout her employment as Defendant Cuomo’s Executive Assistant, the then-Governor subjected her to sexualized comments about her appearance, assigned her humiliating and demeaning tasks, and beginning in early June 2020, subjected her to invasive and unwanted questions about her personal life, romantic and sexual relationships, and history as a survivor of sexual assault,” reads an excerpt of the lawsuit.
The suit lists 11 causes of action and names top Cuomo aides Melissa DeRosa, Jill DeRosiers and Judith Mogul as defendants, who Bennett accuses of enabling his repeated sexual harassment and failing to report it.
“My career as a public servant was abruptly cut short because of Governor Cuomo’s and his top aides’ sexual harassment and retaliation against me after I complained about Governor Cuomo’s misconduct,” Bennett said in a statement. “They must all be held accountable for their actions.”
Bennett was the second former aide to come forward with harassment allegations against the then-governor in February 2021. She served as an executive assistant and health policy adviser during the COVID crisis.
Bennett has said in the past that Cuomo asked her if she’d be open to dating older men and said that she “understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me, and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared.”
After Bennett went public, several others accused Cuomo of inappropriate behavior and prompted an investigation overseen by Attorney General Letitia James’ office. A bombshell report from James detailed the accounts of Bennett and 10 others who say the disgraced Democrat either harassed them or touched them inappropriately.
Cuomo has maintained his innocence despite stepping down and his legal team has repeatedly called Bennett’s credibility into question, citing her connection to a federal lawsuit that alleged four female students at Hamilton College were involved in false sexual misconduct accusations against a male student.
Bennett does not name Cuomo’s attorney Rita Glavin as a defendant in the suit filed Wednesday but describes her in court papers as trying to smear her as “a liar and a con artist” and otherwise discredit her after she went public.
In a statement, Glavin said Cuomo denies sexually harassing Bennett.
“The Governor has always said he didn’t harass anyone, and with each day that goes by, more and more information is uncovered showing how evidence favorable to the Governor was suppressed, and crucial facts ignored or omitted that undermined witness credibility,” Glavin said in a statement. “What else will come out during the discovery process? We’ll see them in court.”
District attorneys who reviewed the evidence collected by James’ office found Cuomo’s accusers credible but said they did not have enough to bring criminal charges, including a case in Albany County related to a former aide who says Cuomo groped her.
In her suit, Bennett details a conversation she had with Cuomo, then 62, in which he allegedly asked her whether she “slept with” older men.
“Plaintiff hesitated to respond, then started to give a noncommittal answer. Defendant Cuomo interrupted her and said that he did not think age mattered in a relationship and would be willing to date someone as long as she was over the age of 21 years old,” the lawsuit reads.
“Plaintiff understood this to be Defendant Cuomo propositioning her sexually.”
Bennett is not the first of Cuomo’s alleged victims to file a civil suit against him.
The former politician is also being sued by a state trooper who served on his security detail and claims he repeatedly sexually harassed her by commenting on her appearance, asking her to find him a “girlfriend” who could “handle pain” and steering their conversations “towards sex.”
Cuomo has sued the attorney general’s office for denying him legal representation in the trooper case and on Tuesday filed a formal ethics complaint accusing state Attorney General Letitia James of intentionally mishandling her office’s investigation and report that concluded he sexually harassed 11 women, mostly much younger staffers.
In his complaint, Cuomo argues that James, as well as two outside lawyers, should be disciplined for violating rules of professional conduct, including one barring lawyers from engaging “in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.”
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