Charlotte Bennett, who served as an govt assistant to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, filed a lawsuit in opposition to the 64-year-old in federal courtroom Wednesday in the hunt for damages for sexual harassment, gender discrimination and retaliation.
Bennett, 27, was once some of the first of greater than a dozen girls to accuse Cuomo of undesirable sexual advances or touch, telling The New York Instances in February 2021 that her boss requested her intrusive questions on her intercourse lifestyles, requested if she was once all for older males and implied he sought after a sexual dating along with her.
In her lawsuit Wednesday, Bennett is going into extra element about operating beneath Cuomo, claiming he “subjected her to sexualized feedback about her look” and “assigned her humiliating and demeaning duties,” corresponding to making her sing songs for him on command and do as many pushups as she may in entrance of him and different staff.
The lawsuit additionally states that Cuomo allegedly pressed Bennett to remark at the dimension of his palms, making her extraordinarily uncomfortable as a result of the “not unusual affiliation between the scale of a person’s hand and the scale of his penis.”
In some other example, she claimed, Cuomo stressed her to percentage the main points of a sexual attack she skilled in school, then instructed her: “Neatly, some folks have it a lot worse.”
Following her talking out, Cuomo and his most sensible aides publicly smeared her, Bennett mentioned in a remark Wednesday.
“My profession as a public servant was once hastily minimize quick as a result of Governor Cuomo’s and his most sensible aides’ sexual harassment and retaliation in opposition to me when I complained about Governor Cuomo’s misconduct,” she mentioned. “They should all be held in command of their movements.”
Bennett’s lawsuit additionally names 3 Cuomo staffers as defendants, accusing them of mishandling sexual harassment lawsuits she made whilst operating for Cuomo.
An in depth document via the state legal professional common launched in August 2021 corroborated Bennett’s and others’ claims, however Cuomo, who was once pressured to surrender in a while thereafter, continues to disclaim any wrongdoing. He’s claimed his accusers misinterpreted his blameless movements as sexually charged.
Lindsey Boylan, some other former aide to Cuomo and the primary to talk out with allegations in opposition to him in overdue 2020, prolonged her reinforce to Bennett in a tweet Wednesday.
“I may now not be extra happy with Charlotte Bennett,” she wrote. “I may now not really feel extra love for anyone I didn’t know two years in the past. She is courageous and he or she is a warrior. And he or she has my complete reinforce.”
Bennett’s lawsuit comes an afternoon after Cuomo filed an ethics grievance in opposition to New York Legal professional Common Letitia James over her administrative center’s document on his movements, announcing she “cynically manipulated a criminal procedure for private, political achieve.”
