Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit Thursday against a former aide who alleged he sexually harassed her in 2020. His legal filing came just days later. she withdrew her own lawsuit against him.
In the filing, Cuomo’s lawyers alleged that Charlotte Bennett, a former executive assistant in his office, lied about him making sexual advances toward her.
“Governor Cuomo did not make any sexual advances toward Bennett or sexually harass her,” his lawyers wrote Thursday in a notice filed in New York state court.
Bennett was the second woman to accuse the then-governor of sexual harassment, including telling her he was “lonely” and asking her if she would be open to sex with an older man. She described Cuomo as “a textbook abuser” who made her “very uncomfortable.”
After Bennett went public with her allegations in March 2021, Cuomo held a press conference in which he said he felt “embarrassed” and that he “never knew at the time that I was making anyone feel uncomfortable.”
In Thursday’s filing, his attorneys wrote that the former governor faced “a cascade of damages” as a result of Bennett’s allegations.
Cuomo resigned in August 2021 after the New York Attorney General released the message results of a study which revealed that he had sexually harassed at least eleven women, including Bennett.
When that investigation came out, Cuomo denied ever sexually harassing women. “The facts are very different from what has been portrayed,” Cuomo said at the time. “I have never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances.”
Last week, Bennett dropped a separate federal lawsuit she filed in 2022 accusing Cuomo of sexual harassment. In a statement her attorney posted to X, Bennett cited “invasive discovery requests” from Cuomo’s legal team that included her medical records from more than a decade ago.
In their filing today, Cuomo’s attorneys note that their discovery requests fell “under the rules that apply to all federal lawsuits. They alleged that Bennett dropped her lawsuit to avoid being impeached and to “protect the overwhelming evidence of her false claims from ever becoming public.”
Cuomo’s message said: “Bennett’s claims were … exposed as a sham during the discovery process.”
As part of her statement last week, an attorney for Bennett said she would still pursue a case against New York State, her employer at the time of the alleged harassment. In a separate statement, Bennett called Cuomo’s legal filings “offensive.”
“Throughout this extraordinarily painful two-year case, I have often believed that I would be better off dead than enduring more of his process abuses, which has caused my family and friends extraordinary pain and expense,” Bennett said. “I desperately need my life.”
