State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani eviscerated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a scathing confrontation over allegations of sexual harassment on Wednesday.
“In 2021, 13 different women who worked in your administration credibly accused you of sexual harassment,” Mamdani said during a fiery exchange at Wednesday’s New York City mayoral debate. “Since then, you have spent more than $20 million in taxpayer funds to defend yourself all while describing these allegations as entirely political. You have even gone so far as to legally go after these women. One of those women, Charlotte Bennett, is here in the audience this evening. You sought to access her private gynecological records.”
Mamdani went on: “She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her. I, however, can speak. What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?”
As the audience applauded, Cuomo seemed to grasp for a response, only to say, “If you want to be in government, then you have to be serious and mature.”
“There were allegations of sexual harassment,” he added. “They were then, went to five district attorneys, fully litigated for four years, the cases were dropped, right? You know that as a fact. So everything you just stated, you just said, was a misstatement.”
Cuomo has long denied a number of sexual harassment allegations after independent investigators appointed by New York Attorney General Letitia James in 2021 found that he had sexually harassed multiple women who were current and former state employees.
Cuomo ultimately resigned from his role as governor following that report, which alleged that he’d engaged in “unwanted groping, kissing, and hugging, and making inappropriate comments.”
Bennett had previously accused Cuomo of asking questions about her sex life and making other inappropriate remarks, allegations he denied.
Lindsey Boylan, the first woman to publicly accuse Cuomo of harassment, expressed support and gratitude for Mamdani’s remarks on Wednesday.
“I am one of these women. I have been legally abused by Andrew Cuomo for years after being harassed as his staffer. Now he wants to be mayor. Shame on you Cuomo and thank you @ZohranKMamdani for speaking out on this injustice,” Boylan wrote in a statement on X.