NEW YORK — Lindsey Boylan helped drive Andrew Cuomo from office in 2021 when the former aide came forward as the first woman to accuse the governor of sexual harassment.
At the time she had allies in high places: Every New York Democrat in Congress, the state’s legislative leaders and then-President Joe Biden all condemned Cuomo’s behavior and said he should resign.
But now that Cuomo is back as a serious contender in the race to be mayor of New York City, many of those top Democrats have little to say about his candidacy.
To Boylan, that feels like a betrayal — one that can’t simply be explained away as an easing of #MeToo outrage.
“If anything has changed, momentarily, it’s that across our country, across issues, people who should be speaking up, aren’t,” Boylan, who served in the Cuomo administration for three years, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“I don’t think anything has specifically changed with women being angry about how our rights are being taken away,” she said. “But the fact that most of our leaders are more interested in staying comfortable and staying in their jobs than actually protecting us and defending us. That’s gotten much worse.”
Cuomo resigned in 2021 after a report released by the state attorney general concluded that he had sexually harassed 11 women, including Boylan.
Now, Cuomo is a frontrunner in the mayoral race, even as state and party leaders, while not warm to his candidacy, haven’t condemned it either.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who as Cuomo’s lieutenant governor had called his alleged behavior with women “repulsive and unlawful,” said Tuesday she stood by those comments. But, she added, she had to “deal in the reality today.”
“I have to go forward in light of where we are today and deal with whatever the voters decide to deal with,” she said, adding that she would work with Cuomo if he was elected.
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said on the NY1 television station that Cuomo made mistakes, but was also a talented executive who did good things as governor. It was up to New York City voters whether he deserved a second chance, she said, declining to give her own opinion on his candidacy.
U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said last week that he would not endorse a candidate until after the city’s June primary. The office of U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, declined to comment.
That Cuomo is a credible candidate is likely due to a mix of factors, experts said. These include the former governor’s aggressive effort to discredit his accusers and his deep record of accomplishments as governor, as well as a field of mayoral candidates with little name recognition and an ongoing sense of disorder at City Hall.
Mayor Eric Adams, the incumbent, was indicted in September on federal corruption charges and is now dealing with a tempest of criticism after President Donald Trump’s newly installed Justice Department leaders asked a court to drop the case so Adams could assist with the federal government’s immigration crackdown.
In a statement, a Cuomo spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, said multiple prosecutors have dug into the allegations the former governor sexually harassed women and none have sought to pursue the cases.
“Three years, five district attorney reviews that resulted in zero cases and civil cases that were either dropped or are dying on the vine,” Azzopardi said, calling that “a clarifying dose of due process.”
New York City “is in crisis and everybody knows that Andrew Cuomo has the experience, the record and the skill to help save it,” he added.
Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University, said the current mayor’s legal and political troubles help place Cuomo at the front of the pack of candidates.
“New York is in such a state of chaos and the government needs someone to come in and take charge and run the show. He is well-matched for that moment,” he said.
Not to Boylan, though, who joined a demonstration outside a Cuomo campaign fundraising event on Tuesday.
“His path to victory is to destroy the women he abused,” she told the AP. “I’ll do everything within my power and my sense of ethics to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
Boylan, who said she was subjected to an unwanted kiss and inappropriate comments from Cuomo, was disappointed but not surprised that other Democrats in New York had not spoken out more forcefully.
“The most powerful people in New York politics are afraid of him,” she said.
Other female ex-aides described fielding kisses — sometimes on the lips — and sexually charged questions and remarks from him about their personal lives and appearance.
A staffer at a state-related agency said he groped her rear while they posed for a photo. A state Health Department doctor was affronted by his comments, such as “you make that gown look good,” while she gave him a COVID-19 test at a news conference. Another woman described Cuomo planting an unwanted kiss on her face when she met him at a wedding.
One aide, Brittany Commisso, filed a criminal complaint accusing Cuomo of groping her breast while they were alone in an office at the governor’s mansion, but a local district attorney declined to prosecute, citing lack of sufficient evidence.
Cuomo apologized for having “offended” the women with remarks he said were intended to be collegial, and allowed that he sometimes had been “too familiar” with people. But he denied touching anyone inappropriately and said the investigation of his conduct was flawed and politically motivated.
Attorney General Letitia James, the Democrat who commissioned the sexual harassment investigation, herself briefly ran for governor in 2021 after Cuomo resigned, but dropped out after two months.
Cuomo’s lawyers and representatives have since fought to vindicate him amid multiple lawsuits from his accusers. Cuomo even has indicated he plans to file a defamation suit against one of the women, former aide Charlotte Bennett.
Despite the accusations, Cuomo has lined up some endorsements from women in politics. City Council Member Kamillah Hanks, a Staten Island Democrat, said in her statement endorsing Cuomo that the “unprecedented times” called for a “strong, unapologetic” leader.
Trump, who has himself been accused of sexual misconduct and was found liable in 2023 by a New York City jury for sexual abuse, charges he denied, has also reshaped the idea of what is acceptable conduct for public officials, said Leigh Gilmore, a professor emeritus at Ohio State University and author of “The #MeToo Effect: What Happens When We Believe Women.”
“The political winds have shifted with Trump being in office, where it’s not agreed anymore that those are disqualifying allegations,” she said.
“What Cuomo is betting on is that New York City will say, ‘We need a strong man,’” she said.
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Associated Press reporter Jennifer Peltz contributed.
