New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo has resigned over a barrage of sexual harassment allegations in a fall from grace a year after he was widely hailed nationally for his detailed daily briefings and leadership during the darkest days of Covid-19.
The three-term governor’s decision, which will take effect in two weeks, was announced as momentum built in the legislature to remove him by impeachment.
It came after New York’s attorney general released the results of an investigation that found Mr Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women.
Investigators said he subjected women to unwanted kisses, groped their breasts or buttocks or otherwise touched them inappropriately, made insinuating remarks about their looks and their sex lives, and created a work environment “rife with fear and intimidation”.
Kathy Hochul, a 62-year-old Democrat and former member of Congress from the Buffalo area, will become the state’s 57th governor and the first woman to hold the post.
She said stepping down was “the right thing to do and in the best interest of New Yorkers”.
The MeToo-era scandal cut short not just a career but a dynasty: Mr Cuomo’s father Mario was governor in the 1980s and 90s, and the younger Cuomo was often mentioned as a potential candidate for president, an office his father famously contemplated seeking.
Even as the scandal mushroomed, Mr Cuomo was planning to run for re-election next year.
I agree with Governor Cuomo's decision to step down. It is the right thing to do and in the best interest of New Yorkers.
As someone who has served at all levels of government and is next in the line of succession, I am prepared to lead as New York State’s 57th Governor.— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) August 10, 2021
He still faces the possibility of criminal charges, with a number of prosecutors around the state moving to investigate him.
The string of accusations that spelled his downfall began to unfold in news reports in December and went on for months.
He called some of the allegations fabricated, forcefully denying he touched anyone inappropriately, but he acknowledged making some aides uncomfortable with comments he said he intended as playful, and apologised for some of his behaviour.
He portrayed some of the encounters as misunderstandings attributable to “generational or cultural” differences, a reference in part to his upbringing in an affectionate Italian-American family.
As a defiant Mr Cuomo clung to office, state legislators launched an impeachment investigation, and nearly the entire Democratic establishment in New York deserted him — not only over the accusations, but also because of the discovery that his administration had concealed thousands of Covid-19 deaths among nursing home patients.
The harassment investigation ordered by New York attorney general Letitia James and conducted by two outside lawyers corroborated the women’s accounts and added lurid new ones.
The release of the report left the governor more isolated than ever, with some of his most loyal supporters abandoning him and President Joe Biden joining those calling on him to resign.
His accusers included an aide who said Mr Cuomo groped her breast at the governor’s mansion. Investigators also found the governor’s staff retaliated against one of his accusers by leaking confidential personnel files about her.
As governor, Mr Cuomo touted himself as an example of a “progressive Democrat” who got things done.
Since taking office in 2011, he helped push through legislation that legalised gay marriage, began lifting the minimum wage to 15 dollars and expanded paid family leave benefits.
He also backed big infrastructure projects, including airport overhauls and construction of a new bridge over the Hudson River that he named after his father.
At the same time the behaviour that got him into trouble was going on, he was publicly championing the MeToo movement and surrounding himself with women’s rights activists, signing into law sweeping new protections against sexual harassment and lengthening the statute of limitations in rape cases.
His national popularity soared during the harrowing spring of 2020, when New York became the epicentre of the nation’s coronavirus outbreak.
His tough but empathetic response made for riveting television well beyond New York, and his warnings to people to stay home and wear masks stood in sharp contrast to Donald Trump’s brush-off of the virus.
His briefings won an international Emmy Award, and he went on to write a book on leadership in a crisis.
But even those accomplishments were tainted when it was learned that the state’s official count of nursing home deaths had excluded many patients who had been transferred to hospitals before they succumbed.
A Cuomo aide acknowledged the administration feared the true numbers would be “used against us” by the Trump White House.
