Facebook Manager Allegedly Told Andrew Cuomo To Victim Shame Victim

This week text messages released by the New York Attorney General’s office show that a Facebook manager who once worked for Andrew Cuomo secretly advised the ex-governor’s team to “victim shame” a sexual harassment accuser.

The Facebook employee tried to cover up her involvement in advising the disgraced former governor, but that didn’t go as planned.

“Like I’m nervous about FB knowing I’ve been working on this etc. etc.,” Dani Lever, the former Cuomo staffer, sent out in March. The same day that that message was sent out, Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi told Lever he’d had gotten her name taken off a news story that was set about to come out, the New York Post reported.

“Rich I could kiss you but it seems like bad form this week,” she replied, which was at the time that the governor was surrounded by allegations he’d acted inappropriately toward staffers.

The two worked to help Cuomo respond to the allegations against him. Lever, who has worked for Facebook since August 2020, advised the then-governor’s team for months, the messages revealed. At one point, Lever helped Cuomo aides in smearing former Cuomo staffer Lindsey Boylan, who had accused the governor of sexual harassment in December 2020.

“I think we can victim shame on the record,” Lever wrote in a December 2020 message to Azzopardi and Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s No. 2. According to the attorney general, she also helped share the alleged victim’s personnel records with reporters.

Lever also compared the “victim shaming” strategy to President Joe Biden’s response to sexual misconduct allegations from former senate staffer Tara Reade amid Biden’s 2020 campaign.

“This was part of Biden’s response by the way. Biden camp said ‘this absolutely did not happen’ then gave a statement,'” Lever wrote. 

A few days after that message, Lever quipped to Cuomo friend Linda Lacewell, “I still don’t know why we are talking to Gov lol. But I’m here for the ride.” 

Lever didn’t stop there. She also confronted a former Cuomo staffer for “liking” a tweet from an accuser named Charlotte Bennett.

“You liked Charlotte’s tweet? Call me,” Lever said in a series of messages to the ex-staffer, Andrew Ball, “Was that on purpose?? Can you unlike it.” 

The messages were discovered as part of Attorney General Letitia James’ probe into the sexual misconduct allegations against Cuomo, which ultimately led to his resignation in August.

James has also been released material from her investigation in what Cuomo’s camp has tried to prove as a politically motivated motive to boost her own campaign for governor.

Among the messages was also a 449-page transcript of a deposition of Lever from June. She grilled her about her work for Cuomo and asked why she kept it a secret from Facebook.

“It’s something that I was doing on my personal time, and I would have preferred Facebook not to know about it,” Lever said.

Lever claims that most of her work for Cuomo was done without Facebook’s knowledge. However, she did say that she had gotten permission from her Facebook supervisor to add her name on a February letter disputing Boylan’s claim that Cuomo suggested they play strip poker while on a taxpayer-funded jet in 2017. 

“I asked for permission,” Lever said. “She was okay with it.”