Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says in a courtroom submitting he intends to sue a former aide who accused him of sexual harassment.
The transfer got here days after the aide, Charlotte Bennett, dropped her two-year-old federal lawsuit in opposition to her ex-boss. Her civil swimsuit in opposition to the State of New York continues to be pending and will quickly be settled, her legal professional, Debra Katz, instructed the Albany Occasions-Union.
Within the courtroom doc warning of his personal impending lawsuit, Cuomo accused Bennett of defamation in a Dec. 9 assertion she made withdrawing her federal swimsuit; Bennett alleged Cuomo’s authorized technique had been to “harass me and my family” via his attorneys.
Charlotte Bennett
John Minchillo/AP
Charlotte Bennett, a former well being coverage aide to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, participates in an interview in New York on Oct. 12, 2021.
Bennett started working for the administration in 2019, when she was 23, as a well being coverage adviser. She got here ahead in 2021 alleging Cuomo had requested her inappropriate and invasive questions on her relationships and intercourse life all through her tenure in his workplace.
Cuomo’s reply was to subject what Katz referred to as an “astonishing number of invasive discovery requests” for medical data starting from optometrists to gynecologists, she stated in a press release. Bennett dropped the federal swimsuit simply earlier than she was to be deposed.
“Cuomo fully intends to clear his name and to ensure that Bennett and her agents never again repeat the falsehood that he sexually harassed Bennett,” his attorneys stated Thursday.
Katz referred to as his case meritless and stated it mirrored the “long history of using defamation lawsuits to silence and punish accusers of sexual harassment.”
Initially Printed: December 19, 2024 at 9:39 PM EST
