A New York state trooper has filed a lawsuit against former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, claiming he touched her inappropriately when she was a member of his protective detail.The lawsuit, adds The New York Times, names several other defendants, including long-time Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa and the New York State Police.According to the Times, the trooper—who is not identified by her real name in any publicly accessible court documents—appears to be the first woman to file a lawsuit against Cuomo for sexual assault or harassment.However, “Trooper 1” is not the first woman to accuse Cuomo of misconduct: nearly a dozen others have raised public complaints against the former New York governor, alleging that he behaved inappropriately with female staff and subordinates.Trooper 1’s lawsuit was filed shortly after the Oswego County District Attorney declined to press charges against Cuomo.

New York Attorney General and former city council member Letitia James. Image via Wikimedia Commons/user:Matthew Cohen. (CCA-BY-2.0).

Several other district attorneys have similarly refused to press charges against Cuomo, even though Cuomo allegedly committed sex crimes in their respective jurisdictions.According to The New York Times, Trooper 1’s lawsuit recounts Cuomo making “repeated instances” of “unwanted physical contact and numerous suggestive remarks.”In her filing, Trooper 1 says that the allege harassment began after she was transferred to Cuomo protective detail, despite lacking the necessary credentials.“He arranged for the service requirements to be changed so that Trooper 1 could be close to him,” the lawsuit states.  “He then sexually harassed her.”“He commented on her appearance (‘why don’t you wear a dress?’); wanted to kiss her ('[c]an I kiss you?’); asked her to find him a girlfriend who could ‘handle pain;' and steered their conversations towards sex ('[w]hy would you want to get married? . . . your sex drive goes down’,” the lawsut states.“As with his other victims, the Governor used his physical proximity to Trooper 1 to touch her inappropriately (“he runs his finger down the center of my back of my spine, basically from the top of my neck, basically midway down with his pointer finger and just said, ‘Hey, you’),” it adds.New York Attorney General Letitia James has since corroborated Trooper 1’s claim, finding that Cuomo transferred her into his detail so that they could spend time together.James’s office has also corroborated accounts from other women who say they were harassed by Cuomo.The lawsuit names Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa and the New York State Police as defendants because Trooper 1 believes that the harassment could have been stopped if the right people had taken her complaints seriously.“The governor did not act alone,” the lawsuit says. “He was enabled by the machinery of the state.”Cuomo has continued to deny all wrongdoing, with one of his spokespeople saying that any descriptions of wrongdoing rely on Letitia James’s “proven fraud of a report.”“If kissing someone on a the cheek, patting someone on the back or stomach or waving hello at a public event on New Year’s is actionable,” the spokesperson said, “then we are all in trouble.”

Sources

Cuomo sued by New York trooper who claims he sexually harassed herTrooper Sues Cuomo and Top Aide Over Sexual Harassment Accusations