New York Governor Andrew Cuomo denies claims that he asked his former aide to play strip poker during a flight.
On Wednesday, his office denied accusations made by Lindsey Boylan. She has accused Cuomo of sexual harassment during an October 2017 flight. At the time, Boylan was a deputy secretary for economic development and a special adviser to the governor. She documented the sexual harassment and bullying that she experienced in a Medium post. In the column, she accused her former boss of suggesting a strip poker game.
“We were flying home from an October 2017 event in Western New York on his taxpayer-funded jet,” Boylan explained. “He was seated facing me, so close our knees almost touched. His press aide was to my right and a state trooper behind us.”
Caitlin Girouard, Cuomo’s press secretary, denied Boylan’s claims.
“As we said before, Ms. Boylan’s claims of inappropriate behavior are quite simply false,” Girouard said in a statement. She also added that flight logs from that time period do not show any flight where the governor was on a flight alone with Boylan, as she claimed in her post.
Girouard also cited a joint statement from John Maggiore, Howard Zemsky, Dani Lever, and Abbey Fashouer Collins. They are all formal aides that shared flights with the governor and Boylan during that period. All have denied Boylan’s allegations.
“We were on each of these October flights, and this conversation did not happen,” the aides confirmed.
The Sexual Harassment Working Group, an organization that explores sexual harassment in political workspaces, has demanded an independent investigation into Cuomo regarding Boylan’s allegations.
