Marc Molinaro, the Republican candidate for Governor, slammed Governor Andrew Cuomo‘s record responding to sexual harassment allegations inside his administration.
“You stood by Shelly Silver, Jeff Klein, Sam Hoyt, and Vito Lopez,” Molinaro asserted during the televised gubernatorial debate on CBS-2 in New York. Each of the men was the subject of sexual harassment or assault complaints from direct reports that were handled improperly and with Cuomo’s complicity.
In the cases of Silver and Lopez, each received Cuomo’s assistance in securing private settlement agreements using taxpayer funds to silence longtime employees who were subjected to their sexual exploits.
Klein was accused of sexual assault and lost his primary reelection.
In the case of Hoyt, Cuomo administration officials were accused of burying a sexual harassment complaint so that the head of the State’s development apparatus in Western New York could be protected.
Molinaro also noted that, when complaints were lodged against senior staff inside the administration, Cuomo terminated one woman and reassigned another to work in a hallway closet.
“When I’m Governor, we’re going to enforce the law so that men can’t prey on women,” he added.
“You’re about fairy tales,” the Governor responded.
The gubernatorial contender also found it distasteful that, when Cuomo was developing new administration policy on sexual harassment, he refused to allow Senate Minority Leader Andrew Stewart-Cousins to participate in those conversations.
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