The woman who accused New York governor Andrew Cuomo of groping revealed her identity in an interview Monday, telling the Albany Times Union and CBS News that the governor “must be held accountable” for touching her inappropriately when she was working as his assistant.
Brittany Commisso, 33, initially made her allegations against the governor anonymously, and is the first accuser to file a criminal complaint against the governor. New York attorney general Letitia James released a report last week detailing sexual harassment allegations against the governor by eleven women.
Commisso, referred to in the report as Executive Assistant #1, told investigators that Cuomo “reached under her blouse and grabbed her breast” in one incident, while in another incident Cuomo “put his hand on and then rubbed and grabbed her butt,” according to the report.
“I believe that he groped me, he touched me, not only once, but twice. And I don’t think that that had happened to any of the other women,” Commisso said in her interview. “The touching, and I believe that because of what had happened to me, that that was the most inappropriate of the actions that he had done.”
“What he did to me was a crime,” she added. “He broke the law.”
Cuomo and his attorney Rita Glavin have flatly denied Commisso’s claims. Commisso responded in her interview by saying that she “knows the truth.”
“I know that, obviously, the governor has to say something to defend himself,” Commisso said. However, “I know the truth . . . I lived it. And why would I make something like that up? I would have nothing to gain from that . . . It doesn’t make any sense. But all I know is that he knows what he did to me.”
Albany County sheriff Craig Apple told reporters on Saturday that “we’re going to do everything in our power to help” Commisso, after she filed the complaint against Cuomo.
“We have a lot of interviews to do and, you know what, I’m not going to rush it because of who [Cuomo] is and I’m not going to delay because of who he is,” Apple said. “We’re going to conduct a very comprehensive investigation, as my investigators and my staff always do.”
Source: National Review
