He’s going — kicking and screaming all the way.
As he packed up his stuff at the Albany executive mansion Friday, disgraced Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s personal lawyer called for “corrections” to the state attorney general’s bombshell investigation that forced him to quit his third term.
Rita Glavin, Cuomo’s personal attorney, made the demands as she split hairs over footnotes and descriptions of Cuomo’s harassment in the 168-page report during an appearance streamed online during which reporters could not ask questions.
Glavin again attempted to undercut the accounts from Cuomo’s 11 accusers, often by focusing on footnotes in the report and other minor details.
Attorney General Letitia James’ probe affirmed and revealed accounts of sexual harassment and misconduct from 11 women against Cuomo, including current and former staffers and state employees.
Cuomo announced last week he would resign after his longtime political support crumbled away in the aftermath of the report’s release.
Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul is slated to on Tuesday at midnight take over as governor.
In one instance, Glavin attempted to undercut the report by pointing out that one victim — State Entity Employee Number 1, who remains publicly unidentified — was directly employed by the state and instead worked for an “affiliated” organization.
“What we do know is that the report — in a line that’s a bit of a throwaway line — noted that she actually doesn’t work for a state entity,” said Glavin. “This particular woman works for an entity that is affiliated with the state, OK?”
But that wasn’t her only objection to a minor detail in the AG’s report.
“The report said that as the governor took a photo with this woman who works with a state affiliated entity, the governor quote, ‘put his hand on State Entity Employee Number 1’s butt, tapped it twice and then grabbed her butt’,” Glavin said, pointing to an instance where a description of Cuomo’s harassment was contemporaneously documented in an email.
However, Glavin insisted that the message only mentioned Cuomo patting the employee’s rear, while not explicitly mentioning that she was then grabbed by the governor.
Despite all her focus on the minutia, Glavin wrongly placed Pier 40 on the Upper West Side as she discussed the likely location of where Cuomo harassed the unnamed woman. The pier is actually located off Houston St., dozens of blocks to the south.
Glavin, a former US prosecutor, has repeatedly attacked the credibility of Cuomo’s accusers’ in recent weeks, focusing special ire on the account of Virginia Limmiatis, who accused Cuomo of touching her chest during a May 2017 event.She did so again Tuesday, pointing to a slew of photos released by Cuomo’s office of the event that she claimed undercut Limmiatis’s account because she appears to be happy and smiling in them.
In response, Limmiatis’ lawyer ripped an “abandoned and alone” Cuomo for his desperate attempt to clear his name.
“Abandoned and alone, Cuomo uses his last few days on the job to take care of himself rather than New York, and resorts to his old tactics,” attorney Mariann Wang said in a statement.
“Virginia Limmiatis knows the truth and has sworn to it, as have her witnesses,” Wang added. “Cuomo’s touching was inappropriate and unacceptable, and as the AG report concluded, unlawful.”
AG James was also not amused by Glavin’s latest salvos at her report, the substance of which remains largely untouched despite weeks of attacks from Cuomo and his few remaining allies.
“Given the multiple, ongoing criminal investigations into the governor’s conduct, it would not be appropriate to respond further to these baseless attacks,” said James’s spokeswoman Delaney Kempner.
“The 168-page report and additional 486 pages of exhibits clearly corroborate the experiences of the complainants, yet the governor and his aides continue to undermine those who seek to expose this dangerous conduct,” she added. “We cannot allow survivors of sexual harassment to be further traumatized by these continued attacks, lies, and conspiracy theories.”
The statement seemingly ruled out any possibility that James’s office would accede to Galvin’s demand that the report be amended to more fully include Cuomo’s defense.
Additional reporting by Bernadette Hogan
