London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Sep 19, 2025

Andrew Cuomo Says He's Sorry - But Won't Resign Over Those Sexual Harassment Claims

Andrew Cuomo Says He's Sorry - But Won't Resign Over Those Sexual Harassment Claims

Cuomo said he “never touched anyone inappropriately,” despite one woman saying he kissed her without consent and a photo of another woman looking visibly uncomfortable as Cuomo grabbed her cheeks.

After three women accused him of sexual harassment and making unwanted advances, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo publicly apologized on Wednesday, but said he would not resign.

“I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable. It was unintentional and I truly and deeply apologize for it,” Cuomo said at a press briefing. “I feel awful about it and, frankly, I am embarrassed by it.”

Despite his apology, Cuomo said he “never touched anyone inappropriately” and urged people to “wait for the facts...before forming an opinion.”

Two of the women have accused Cuomo of touching them inappropriately, with one saying he kissed her without her consent in his office and another recalling that he aggressively grabbed her cheeks at a wedding and asked to kiss her. A photo has circulated of the latter incident, showing the woman appearing frightened.

Cuomo was first accused of harassment by a former aide, Lindsey Boylan, who worked in his office from 2015 to 2018. In a Feb. 24 Medium post, Boylan said Cuomo asked her to play strip poker and repeatedly made comments indicating he found her attractive. She also said he kissed her on the lips once in his Manhattan office in 2018.

A second former aide, Charlotte Bennett, 25, told the New York Times that Cuomo repeatedly asked her questions about her sex life and once asked her if she “had ever been with an older man.” Bennett left Cuomo’s office in November, and said much of the harassment occurred during the height of the pandemic, a time during which Cuomo became a prominent political figure nationally.

“I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me, and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared,” Bennett said. “And was wondering how I was going to get out of it and assumed it was the end of my job.”

Debra Katz, an attorney representing Bennett, said in a statement that Cuomo’s press conference was “full of falsehoods and inaccurate information.”

“New Yorkers deserve better,” Katz said.

The third woman, Anna Ruch, told the New York Times she met Cuomo at a wedding in September 2019 and he acted in an “aggressive” manner toward her, touching her despite her visible discomfort and and asking to kiss her.

Speaking on Wednesday, Cuomo acknowledged Ruch’s claims, including the photo of him grabbing her face, but said this was how he commonly greets people and noted that his father, former New York governor Mario Cuomo, did the same.

“You can find hundreds of pictures of me making the same gesture with hundreds of people — women, men, children, et cetera... It is my usual and customary way of greeting,” he said. “If they felt pain from it, I apologize. I did not intend it, I didn’t mean it that way, but if that’s how they felt, that’s all that matters, and I apologize.”

People attend a March 2 protest to demand New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s resignation after a third woman accused him of sexual harassment.


Cuomo has agreed to be investigated by state Attorney General Letitia James, and reiterated Wednesday that he will “fully cooperate” with the probe.

Since the women have gone public about their interactions with the governor, calls have risen for him to resign. Many have come from his fellow New York Democrats, including Rep. Kathleen Rice, State Sen. James Skoufis, and New York City mayoral candidates Scott Stringer and Maya Wiley. The state’s progressive Working Families Party also released a petition calling for Cuomo’s resignation.

In the Wednesday briefing, Cuomo criticized them, saying, “Politicians will always play politics.”

“I’m not going to resign,” Cuomo said. “I work for the people of the state of New York. They elected me, and I’m going to serve the people of the state of New York.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
×