The Albany County District Attorney’s office said Tuesday it was dropping criminal charges of forcible touching against former New York governor Andrew Cuomo just days before he was set to be arraigned.
District attorney David Soares announced the dismissal of the misdemeanor criminal charges related to accusations that Cuomo forcibly touched a female aide in the governor’s mansion in December 2020, but added that the woman’s complaint was credible.
“After review of all the available evidence we have concluded that we cannot meet our burden at trial,” he said in a statement.
“As such we have notified the Court that we are declining to prosecute this matter and requesting the charges filed by the Albany County Sheriff be dismissed,” Soares added.
The announcement came three days before Cuomo was scheduled to appear in court for the first time in the case, which the Albany County Sheriff’s Office had filed in October.
The complaint alleged that on December 7, 2020 Cuomo groped an aide who visited him in the Executive Mansion in Albany, saying that he intentionally “and for no legitimate purpose, forcibly placed his hand under the blouse shirt of the victim … and onto her intimate body part.”
“Specifically, the [victim’s] left breast for the purposes of degrading and gratifying his sexual desires,” the complaint said.
Cuomo resigned in August after a report by the New York state attorney general found that the governor sexually harassed almost a dozen women in violation of federal and state law.
Meanwhile, several other prosecutors indicated they would not file charges against the disgraced former governor, including Westchester district attorney Miriam Rocah who announced last week that her office had decided not to pursue criminal charges against Cuomo on two sexual harassment allegations, despite finding them “credible.”
“Our investigation found credible evidence to conclude that the alleged conduct in both instances described above did occur,” Rocah said in a statement. “However, in both instances, my Office has determined that, although the allegations and witnesses were credible, and the conduct concerning, we cannot pursue criminal charges due to the statutory requirements of the criminal laws of New York.”