A Buffalo-area assemblywoman is being reprimanded after an ethics investigation found that she sexually harassed an aide. The legislator, first-term Republican Angela Wozniak representing suburban Cheektowaga, was accused by her legislative director of coercing him into a sexual relationship. The investigation found that the relationship was consensual, but an ethics panel wrote that Wozniak used "incredibly poor judgment" and retaliated when the aide broke it off by bad-mouthing him in a job reference and identifying him in the media. Wozniak is married and has a young son.
In a break from the Old Boys' Club in Albany's recent practice of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to make sexual harassment claims disappear, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie publicized this investigation and its results. Ironically, Wozniak ran on a promise of embodying "Western New York Values" to replace Democrat Dennis Grabyszak. Grabyszak resigned in 2014 after more than six female staffers complained that he sexually harassed them by, among other things, sending them videos of himself getting a blowjob, making them look at his phone and iPad knowing they would have to see porn, asking them to wear "sexy elf" costumes for a Christmas photo, and forcibly trying to kiss one. He was fined $70,000 after stepping down.
As punishment for her actions, Wozniak is barred from having interns, has to take a class on how not to sexually harass people, and must allow twice-annual inspections of her office. She also has to stop talking smack about her former staffer, who will be rehired by the Assembly at his old pay rate for a year and work for someone else, with the money coming out of her budget.
Wozniak's lawyer Steve Cohen pointed out that some elements of the accuser's claims weren't substantiated.
"I just don't think that the facts could support any of those accusations or charges," he told Time Warner Cable News. "It was a very disturbing process that the Assembly Ethics Committee mandates and of course, any violation of their procedures is sanctionable to the assemblywoman so my hands were essentially tied."
Cohen called the office monitoring remedy "entirely inappropriate."
After being criticized for his coverup of disgusting allegations against then-Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez, former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver reworked the Assembly policy on investigating sexual harassment, putting the private firm Rossein Associates in charge of the probes.
Wozniak is 29 and, so far, has not managed to pass any legislation during her term.
