Charlotte Bennett, one of the three women accusing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment, says that he pressed her to find him a girlfriend.
Bennett's comments came during an interview for “CBS Evening News With Norah O’Donnell” that was shown on Friday’s broadcast of “CBS This Morning.”
Bennett, then an executive assistant for Cuomo, said she was called into the Democrat governor’s office on June 6 and told to turn off the tape recorder she used for dictation.
“He asked me a few questions about how to use his iPhone and then sends me back to wait,” Bennett said. "And finally, he calls me back in and asks if I’ve found him a girlfriend yet.”
“I said, ‘Not yet.’ I said I was working on it.”
Bennett said Cuomo's alleged demand had first come when he called her into his office the previous day.
"He wanted a girlfriend," she told CBS. "When he said he was lonely I mentioned that his daughters had been around. He said: 'I love my daughters, but I want a girlfriend.'"
Cuomo on Wednesday apologized for the interactions but denied any inappropriate intent and refused calls to resign from office.
“I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable,” Cuomo said. “It was unintentional and I truly and deeply apologize for it. I feel awful about it and frankly, I’m embarrassed by it, and that’s not easy to say. But that’s the truth.”
Bennett said during her CBS interview, however, that Cuomo asked if she had ever been with an older man.
“I thought, he’s trying to sleep with me,” she said. “The governor’s trying to sleep with me and I’m deeply uncomfortable and I have to get out of this room as soon as possible.
“Without explicitly saying it, he implied to me that I was old enough for him and he was lonely.”
Cuomo adviser Beth Garvey said in a statement: "Ms. Bennett's concerns were treated with sensitivity and respect and in accordance with applicable law and policy."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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