A former adviser to Governor Andrew Cuomo has come forward with detailed allegations that describe how he sexually harassed her over three years. The governor, Lindsey Boylan alleged, tried to keep tabs on her movement, joked about playing “strip poker,” made her deeply uncomfortable by commenting on her appearance to other staffers, and forcibly kissed her.
Boylan described her allegations against Cuomo in a lengthy Medium post published Wednesday, including screenshots of an email exchange and text exchanges with both her mother and another Cuomo staffer. Boylan said the abuse culminated shortly after she’d been promoted to Deputy Secretary for Economic Development and Special Advisor to the Governor in 2018.
Following a private meeting with the governor at his Manhattan offices, Boylan said Cuomo stepped in and kissed her on the lips as she was leaving the room.
“I was in shock, but I kept walking,” she wrote, adding she was horrified that his staffer outside the office might have seen the kiss. “The idea that someone might think I held my high-ranking position because of the Governor’s 'crush' on me was more demeaning than the kiss itself.”
Boylan, who is a currently a candidate for Manhattan Borough President, declined to comment beyond the Medium post. She hinted at the abuse in tweets she made last December, but had declined further interviews at the time. Cuomo previously denied the allegations, and his office repeated the denial on Wednesday.
"As we said before, Ms. Boylan's claims of inappropriate behavior are quite simply false,” press secretary Caitlin Girouard said in a statement.
Boylan’s allegations come as Cuomo faces perhaps the rockiest political moment in his decade in office, amid mounting criticism about hiding data on the number of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes, and emerging complaints of bullying behavior towards lawmakers and colleagues.
Last week, Assemblymember Ron Kim spoke publicly about an abusive call he’d received from the governor after speaking to the press about the nursing home issue. The New York Times subsequently reported the Governor had a “do-not-yell” list held by the governor’s former top aide Joe Percoco, who is currently serving a prison sentence on corruption charges.
Some State lawmakers came to Boylan’s defense after she published her account. State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins called the account "deeply disturbing," and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie sent out a statement saying, "harassment in the workplace of any kind should not be tolerated."
“I believe her,” tweeted Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou. “Imagine going to work every day with this kind of fear. I know what it is like. So many of us do. It must end.”
The Sexual Harrassment Working Group, formed in 2018 by a group of legislative staffers in the wake of the #MeToo movement to address harassment in the state government, affirmed Boyland's account.
“This is sadly, nauseatingly necessary to repeat again today as more people speak out about their experiences in the workplace with Governor Cuomo,” the group said in a statement. “This is another reckoning point. We refuse to accept a definition of leadership that depends on denigrating and abusing others in service to one powerful man.”
Boylan was hired by the state in 2015, and said she first met the governor in 2016 at an event at Madison Square Garden. Soon after, she wrote, her boss told her Cuomo had a “crush” on her. In a subsequent exchange, Cuomo’s staffer Stephanie Benton emailed her to tell her Cuomo thought she looked like “the better-looking sister,” of Cuomo’s rumored ex-girlfriend, Lisa Shields.
“It was degrading,” Boylan wrote.
Boylan described several unconformable encounters in the following years as she made her way up the ranks in his administration. The governor would go out of his way to touch her lower back, arms and legs, she wrote. When flying with him and other staffers on his private jet, he’d joked about playing “strip poker,” which Boylan said she tried to laugh off. The governor’s office denied the conversation had happened, providing a list of names of passengers on the plane in October, 2017.
"We were on each of these October flights and this conversation did not happen,” a statement from current and former staffers John Maggiore, Howard Zemsky, Dani Lever, and Abbey Fashouer Collins.
The statement from Cuomo’s office did not specifically refute the email Boylan received from Benton, or the meeting where she said the governor had kissed her against her will. Shortly after the alleged kiss, Boylan resigned from her position. The Daily News reported last year that two state officials requested she be removed from office for ordering around employees who didn’t report to her, citing personnel files the publication obtained. The files also raised “additional concerns” of African-American women, who reported to her and felt bullied by her.
“I came to work nauseous every day,” Boylan said of her time working for the governor, adding that she felt compelled to tell her full version of events after Assemblymember Ron Kim spoke up last week.
“No woman should feel forced to hide their experiences of workplace intimidation, harassment and humiliation — not by the Governor or anyone else,” Boylan wrote. “There are many more of us, but most are too afraid to speak up.”
