Gov. Andrew Cuomo had someone else take his mandatory workplace sexual harassment training for him – and signed it as if he had done it himself, accuser Charlotte Bennett says in a new interview aired Friday night.
Bennett also claims that one of the governor’s own top aides admitted to her last summer that he had “cared for” her – but that the case did not need to be investigated further because Cuomo’s conduct had gone no further.
The explosive revelations were made by the 25-year-old former Cuomo assistant in an interview on “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell.”
“At first they apologized, saying it was inappropriate,” she said of a June 30 meeting with Cuomo special counsel Judith Mogul and his chief of staff, Jill DesRosiers.
‘I asked them if they could let it go, saying,’ I don’t want this to be investigated, please drop this’, you know, because I was scared.
‘She said,’ You came to us before anything serious happened. It was just grooming, and it wasn’t considered sexual harassment yet, so we don’t need to investigate that, ” Bennett claimed.
It was not clear whether Bennett was referring to Mogul, Desrosiers or anyone else at the meeting.
Cuomo had his official training for him, Bennett also claimed.
“In 2019 he did not follow the sexual harassment training,” Bennett O’Donnell said in the interview.
“How do you know that?” O’Donnell asks.
“I was there,” replies Bennett, who worked for him at the time.
‘I heard Stephanie say,’ I can’t believe I’m doing this for you, ‘Bennett recalls – referring to office manager Stephanie Benton.
“I’m joking about the fact that she finished training for him,” Bennett recalls.
“And then I heard her at the end ask him to sign the certificate,” Bennett said.
Bennett’s explosive claim that the governor had an assistant to complete his sexual harassment training for him contradicts what he said on Wednesday.
When a reporter asked if he had completed mandatory training, Cuomo simply said, “The short answer is yes.”
Benton, meanwhile, “categorically denies the exchange,” according to a statement from the governor’s office adding, “this is not true,” CBS reported.
Also in the interview, Bennett said the governor ordered her to “ find ” a girlfriend for him – and impatiently asked a day later if she had, a revelation teased in previews earlier Friday.
Meanwhile, Bennett’s attorney, Debra Katz, sent a letter to State Attorney General Letitia James asking the AG to ensure that evidence regarding Bennett’s sexual harassment claims is retained by the governor’s office and senior staff.
The urgency of Katz’s request “was reinforced by recent new reports that the governor’s staff were updating government reports on other matters,” the lawyer said in a statement.
That was a clear reference to Thursday night news that Cuomo’s top advisers urged state health officials to omit from a public report the number of nursing home residents who have died in hospitals from COVID-19.