The only lawsuit over sexual harassment allegations that resulted in the resignation of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was dismissed at the prosecution’s request.
Judge Holly Trexler presided over the virtual hearing of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, held in Albany, the state capital.
Albany District Attorney David Soares had requested three days ago that the case against former New York Governor Cuomo be dropped due to insufficient evidence. Cuomo’s lawyers asked the court to grant the prosecution’s request. In the virtual hearing held today, which lasted about ten minutes, Judge Trexler also announced that he had closed the sexual harassment case by considering the prosecutor’s request.
Cuomo, who denied the sexual harassment claim, did not speak at the hearing. When his lawyer, Rita Glavin, turned the camera around to show his client was in the room, Cuomo, wearing a black mask, was briefly seen.
Speaking at the virtual hearing, Albany Deputy Attorney General Jennifer McCanney said prosecutors had “examined all available evidence and decided that they would not be able to secure a successful conviction in this case.” Cuomo’s lawyers stated that they have no objection to the prosecution’s request.
Judge Holly Trexler noted district attorneys’ “free discretion” in deciding whether to prosecute a case and said, “The court cannot and should not interfere with a district attorney’s discretion.”
“The rule of law has won”
Rita Glavin, Andrew Cuomo’s lawyer, said in a video statement after the hearing, “Today, reason and the rule of law have prevailed. It is not politics or gang mentality.”
The lawsuit process and the indictment, which was initiated upon the complaint of Brittany Commisso, who worked with Cuomo for a while, was dropped after the decision of the prosecutor’s office. In his petition to the court in 2020, Commisso claimed that former Governor Cuomo had groped him sexually.
Former New York Governor Cuomo resigned after an investigation was opened against him for allegedly sexually assaulting 11 women. The indictment regarding the lawsuit filed by the Governor’s former colleague, Commisso, by filing a criminal complaint with the court, was accepted by the Albany District Court last October.
It was stated that the incident, which is the subject of sexual harassment, took place at Cuomo’s house on December 7, 2020. Cuomo, 64, resigned from his post on August 10 last year. Governor Cuomo had argued that a political conspiracy had been set up against him and that the accusations against him were not true.