NEW YORK: Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will not face criminal charges after a female state trooper said she felt “completely violated” by her unwanted touching at an event in Belmont Park in September 2019, a long island prosecutor said on Thursday.
Nassau County Acting District Attorney Joyce Smith said in a statement that an investigation found the allegations against Cuomo to be “credible, deeply disturbing but not criminal under New York law.”
Smith launched the investigation after details of the encounter emerged in Attorney General Letitia James’ August report on the sexual assault allegations against Cuomo. The report chronicled the allegations of 11 women resigning from office to Cuomo, though she has attacked the findings as biased and inaccurate.
Cuomo spokesman Rich Azopardi did not directly address Smith’s decision in a statement released Thursday afternoon.
“With each passing day, it becomes more and more clear that the Attorney General’s report was the intersection of gross accusatory misconduct and abuse of government power for political purposes,” Azopardi said.
James’ report found that Cuomo sexually assaulted at least 11 women in violation of federal and state civil rights law. But she said it would be up to prosecutors to pursue potential criminal penalties.
Reportedly, the soldier said that Cuomo moved the palm of his left hand to his stomach, to his belly button, and then to his right hip, where he held his gun, while holding a door open for him as he held a was leaving the program. September 23, 2019 at Belmont Park.
Cuomo was at a state-owned racetrack, home to the final stage of the Triple Crown of horse racing, to break ground in a new arena for the NHL’s New York Islanders. The arena, adjacent to the track’s main grandstand and paddock, was opened last month.
A member of Cuomo’s security detail, the soldier told James’ investigators that Cuomo’s conduct in the incident caused him to “absolutely violate my cause, as is between my chest and my private parts.”
James’ report said that although the soldier was upset by Cuomo’s unwanted touch, she didn’t think she could do anything about it.
“I am a soldier recently assigned to the travel team. Do I want to make waves? No,” she said, according to reports. “I have heard horror stories about people getting carried away with the details Gone or moved like little things. … I had no plans to report it.”
The soldier told James’ investigators that what happened at Belmont Park was one of several examples of Cuomo’s “flirt” and “creepy” behavior toward him.
Once, in an elevator, he traced his finger from her neck to his back, she said. Another time, he asked her to kiss him in the driveway outside their Mount Kisco home and proceeded to peck her cheek, she said.
“I remember just getting the chills, in the back of my head, I’m like, oh, how do I politely say no?” He told investigators.
The Nassau County investigation was limited to the encounter at Belmont Park, which is on the county’s border with New York City. Officials in other parts of the state are investigating other allegations in James’ report.
In October, the Albany County Sheriff’s Office filed a misdemeanor complaint against Cuomo, but a week later the district attorney asked a judge for more time to evaluate the evidence.
The DA said the sheriff’s one-page criminal complaint, based on allegations from a woman who said Cuomo slipped her blouse out of his hand and grabbed her breast at the governor’s mansion in late 2020, “likely was grossly defective”.
At the request of the prosecutor, a court delayed Cuomo’s scheduled conviction until January 7.
After James’ report was released, the US Justice Department launched a civil investigation into the sexual assault claims made against Cuomo in August. The exact nature of the investigation and its current status are unclear.
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