How Cuomo’s Staff Tried to Tarnish Certainly one of His Accusers

Days after Lindsey Boylan grew to become the primary girl to accuse Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of sexual harassment in a sequence of Twitter posts in December, folks tied to the governor began circulating an open letter that they hoped former workers members would signal.

The letter was a full-on assault on Ms. Boylan’s credibility, suggesting that her accusation was premeditated and politically motivated. It disclosed personnel complaints filed in opposition to her and tried to hyperlink her to supporters of former President Donald J. Trump.

“Weaponizing a declare of sexual harassment for private political acquire or to attain notoriety can’t be tolerated,” the letter concluded. “False claims demean the veracity of credible claims.”

The preliminary thought, in line with three folks with direct information of the occasions, was to have former Cuomo aides — particularly ladies — signal their names to the letter and flow into it pretty broadly.

A number of drafts had been created, and Mr. Cuomo was concerned in creating the letter, one of many folks stated. Present aides to the governor emailed not less than one draft to a gaggle of former advisers. From there, it circulated to present and former prime aides to the governor.

It isn’t clear how many individuals had been requested to signal the letter, however two former officers, talking on the situation of anonymity as a result of they didn’t need to anger Mr. Cuomo, determined that they didn’t need their names on it.

The letter, which was reviewed by The New York Instances, was by no means launched. Ms. Boylan didn’t instantly elaborate or observe up on her Twitter posts in December, permitting her accusations to fade, together with the urgency of the trouble to discredit her. Nonetheless, the letter exhibits that the Cuomo administration was poised to rapidly and aggressively undercut Ms. Boylan, a Democrat who’s operating for Manhattan borough president.

On the time, officers within the governor’s workplace had been conscious of one other sexual harassment situation involving Mr. Cuomo that had not but change into public.

Six months earlier, Charlotte Bennett, an govt assistant and senior briefer, had instructed two senior officers within the governor’s workplace that he had harassed her, asking her probing private questions together with whether or not she was monogamous and whether or not she slept with older males.

Ms. Bennett went public along with her allegations in The New York Instances final month, saying in an interview how she “understood that the governor wished to sleep with me,” including that she “felt horribly uncomfortable and scared.”

Ms. Bennett got here ahead simply days after Ms. Boylan had written an essay on Medium, detailing the allegations that she initially made on Twitter on Dec. 13. Ms. Boylan wrote that the governor would repeatedly attempt to contact her on her arms, legs and decrease again, and that he as soon as recommended they “play strip poker.”

Since then, a number of different ladies have accused Mr. Cuomo of inappropriate conduct, from undesirable sexual advances to unsolicited kisses and groping.

The governor has denied ever touching anybody inappropriately and has pleaded with New Yorkers to await the end result of two separate investigations: one overseen by the state legal professional normal, Letitia James, and one other by the State Meeting. Whereas Mr. Cuomo has recommended that a few of his actions or statements might have been misinterpreted, his rejection of Ms. Boylan’s claims has been much more strenuous.

“I imagine a girl has the appropriate to come back ahead and categorical her opinion and categorical points and issues that she has,” Mr. Cuomo stated on Dec. 14. “Nevertheless it’s simply not true.”

Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to the governor, stated on Tuesday that the administration had no touch upon the letter about Ms. Boylan, citing the continued investigations.

At the least one model of the letter included Ms. Boylan’s textual content exchanges with a few of Mr. Cuomo’s senior advisers final yr, in an effort to recommend that she was malicious. The Instances will not be quoting extensively from the letter, to keep away from publishing character assaults that weren’t made publicly.

The draft extensively disparaged Ms. Boylan and accused her of utilizing her claims for “political retribution.”

The letter identified that Ms. Boylan’s marketing campaign marketing consultant additionally represented a political adversary of the governor’s, and that Ms. Boylan was “supported by legal professionals and monetary backers of Donald Trump: an lively opponent of the governor.”

The preliminary plan for a letter about Ms. Boylan illustrated how the Cuomo administration was ready to launch a broader effort to wreck her credibility.

The method appeared according to a tradition of intimidation from the governor’s workplace that former aides have described, and Ms. Boylan was clearly a goal.

The Wall Avenue Journal reported final week that aides to Mr. Cuomo referred to as not less than six former aides shortly after Ms. Boylan’s Twitter posts, which accused the governor of harassing her in entrance of others. The calls had been to ask whether or not the previous aides had heard from the accuser, or to be taught issues about her. A few of these contacted felt as if the calls had been meant to intimidate them from talking out.

One other of Mr. Cuomo’s accusers and one other former aide, Ana Liss, stated that she had obtained a name from a prime adviser to the governor shortly after Ms. Boylan tweeted concerning the governor in December.

“I believed, why would he do this?” Ms. Liss, who now works for Monroe County, stated in an interview. “He was making an attempt to substantiate how broad Lindsey’s community was.”

On Tuesday, Ms. Boylan’s lawyer, Jill Basinger, stated the letter was one other try to smear her shopper.

“As soon as once more, a sufferer of sexual harassment who has the braveness to inform her story is put within the place of not solely having to relive the trauma of a poisonous work surroundings however defend herself in opposition to the malicious leaking of supposed personnel information, character assassinations and a whisper marketing campaign of retaliation,” Ms. Basinger stated. “This web page must be ripped out of the governor’s harassment handbook.”

Using such techniques in harassment claims is so commonplace that it has its personal acronym: DARVO, which stands for “deny, assault, and reverse sufferer and offender.”

“It’s extremely frequent for people who expertise sexual harassment to additionally expertise retaliation,” stated Emily Martin, vp for schooling and office justice on the Nationwide Girls’s Regulation Middle, which runs the Time’s Up Authorized Protection Fund. “We’ve heard from hundreds of people who’re searching for assist to deal with office harassment, and greater than 70 % of them say they’ve additionally skilled retaliation.”

Shortly after Ms. Boylan had first accused Mr. Cuomo, a number of media organizations printed particulars of her personnel data that had been launched by the Cuomo administration, outlining unflattering accounts of Ms. Boylan’s previous actions as a boss and suggestions of disciplinary motion in opposition to her.

For supporters of Mr. Cuomo, who has denied any wrongdoing, the paperwork had been exculpatory, portray an image of a disgruntled worker with an ax to grind.

Beth Garvey, the performing counsel to Mr. Cuomo, defended the discharge of Ms. Boylan’s data, saying on Tuesday that, with sure exceptions, “it’s inside a authorities entity’s discretion to share redacted employment data, together with in situations when members of the media ask for such public data and when it’s for the aim of correcting inaccurate or deceptive statements.”

She, too, cited the legal professional normal’s investigation and kept away from further remark.

The pace at which the paperwork had been supplied was distinctive, notably contemplating that statehouse reporters in Albany and elsewhere are accustomed to ready for months, if not years, for entry to public data via the state’s Freedom of Data Regulation.

“The administration has a well-documented document to being fairly closed on FOIL,” stated Blair Horner, the chief director of the New York Public Curiosity Analysis Group, noting efforts to stymie reporters trying into Joseph Percoco, a detailed aide of Mr. Cuomo’s who was convicted of federal corruption costs in 2018. “There’s appreciable and constant examples of them making it extraordinarily tough to get data.”

Legal professionals who work on sexual harassment stated that an worker’s work historical past was immaterial as to if or not they’ll declare harassment.

“There’s not a protection to harassment that the particular person was a foul worker,” stated Elizabeth Kristen, a senior workers legal professional with Authorized Support at Work in San Francisco, including, “It’s not even related. Perhaps she was the worst worker on this planet, however she may nonetheless be harassed.”

Luis Ferré-Sadurní contributed reporting.