The woman who made the most serious claims against Andrew Cuomo gave her first television interview Monday, describing why it took almost six months after accusing him of non-consensual groping for her name to be made public and a criminal complaint to be filed.
Brittany Commisso, a governor's staffer referred to as "executive assistant #1" in the New York Attorney General's explosive report, disclosed her identity in interviews with CBS "This Morning" and The Albany Times Union.
She went into great detail about the groping accusations and how Andrew Cuomo's conduct progressed from pleasant "goodbye" hugs to embraces she said the governor was getting "personal, sexual gratification" out of.
While Andrew Cuomo has consistently denied improperly touching any of his victims, Commisso claims Andrew Cuomo grabbed and massaged her butt during a selfie in December 2019, and then went under her shirt and groped her breast in November 2020.
Initially vowing to keep her experience private, Commisso claimed she decided to make her claims public in March after seeing Andrew Cuomo's emphatic denial of allegations of improper touching, stating, "I felt like he was personally saying it to me."
Commisso is married to Frank Commisso Jr., a former Albany Common Council member. said she was afraid to come forward with her identity because she was afraid “it wasn’t going to be him that would get fired or in trouble, it was going to be me” and she didn’t want to lose her “dream job.”
She claimed she felt especially scared since the alleged event occurred within the heavily guarded executive mansion, where state troopers "are not there to defend me, they are there to protect him."
“There was a moment when juggling my personal life and this was too much for me. People don't realize it's the governor of New York,” Commisso added. “I was concerned that if I came forward and disclosed my identity, the governor and his supporters would brutally attack me, tarnish my name, as I had seen them do previously to other people.”
In a nearly hour-long appearance on CNN on Saturday, Andrew Cuomo's attorney Rita Glavin, who has branded the attorney general's probe as "biassed" and an "ambush," particularly attacked Commisso's accusations. “He did not grope her, and there was the information presented to the Attorney General by numerous persons regarding probable motivations for her to have made that claim,” Glavin said.
The interview with Commisso, one of 11 women who have accused Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment, comes just hours after Andrew Cuomo's senior assistant, Melissa DeRosa, resigned. The retirement of DeRosa, one of the governor's staunchest supporters, is a huge blow as he runs out of allies amid widespread calls for his resignation or impeachment.
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