Another current aide of Governor Andrew Cuomo has accused him of sexual harassment.
Alyssa McGrath, 33, said the governor, 63, ogled her body, called her and her co-worker ‘mingle mamas’ and asked about her lack of a wedding ring, according to The New York Times.
The New York Times conducted several interviews McGrath over the past week in which she described the governor’s pattern of flirtatious banter.
She also claimed he looked down her shirt to compliment her on her necklace, told her that she’s beautiful in Italian and kissed her on the forehead during an office Christmas party in 2019.
DailyMail.com has reached out to McGrath for further information and additional comment.
McGrath, the ninth woman to have now accused the New York governor of sexual harassment, also recounted another Cuomo accuser describing her own allegations to her, which were detailed by The Times Union of Albany last week.
Alyssa McGrath said Cuomo ogled her body, called her and her co-worker ‘mingle mamas’ and asked about her lack of a wedding ring as well calling her beautiful in Italian
McGrath is the ninth woman to have now accused the New York governor of sexual harassment
The unnamed woman, who was Cuomo’s sixth accuser, has claimed Cuomo groped her breast in the Executive Mansion.
‘She froze when he started doing that stuff to her,’ McGrath told The New York Times.
She added: ‘But who are you going to tell?’
McGrath said that the co-worker, with whom she regularly spoke and talked to about interactions with Cuomo, told her that he asked her not to talk about the alleged incident.
‘He told her specifically not to tell me,’ McGrath said.
An Alyssa McGrath is listed on SeeThroughNY, a database of public employees maintained by the Empire Center, as being a confidential stenographer with a pay rate of $47,000.
LinkedIn and social media accounts that appear to have been deleted list her as an Executive Assistant in The Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, and she told the Times that Cuomo’s behavior began soon after she was hired in May 2018.
‘He has a way of making you feel very comfortable around him, almost like you’re his friend,’ McGrath told the Times.
‘But then you walk away from the encounter or conversation, in your head going, ‘I can’t believe I just had that interaction with the governor of New York’.’
McGrath said she was called to Cuomo’s office on the second floor of the mansion early in 2019.
Cuomo asked McGrath if she spoke Italian and then made a comment to her in the language.
McGrath, who does not speak Italian but is of Italian heritage, asked her parents what the phrase meant – and her mother confirmed the incident to the Times.
‘It was commenting on how beautiful I was,’ McGrath recalled.
Rita Glavin, a lawyer for Cuomo, responded to McGrath’s allegations by admitting he uses Italian phrases like ‘ciao bella.’
‘The governor has greeted men and women with hugs and a kiss on the cheek, forehead, or hand. Yes, he has posed for photographs with his arm around them. Yes, he uses Italian phrases like ‘ciao bella’,’ Glavin told the Times on Friday.
McGrath claimed she was later called to the governor’s office in the Capitol for a dictation session where she was alone with him.
She told the Times she sat across from the governor and was ready to do her job while waiting for him to start speaking.
‘He didn’t start speaking, so I looked up to see what was going on. And he was blatantly looking down my shirt,’ McGrath told the Times.
She said that Cuomo asked her what was on her necklace, which was inside her shirt.
‘My face turned really hot,’ she said.
McGrath told the Times she detailed this experience at the time with her co-worker and fellow accuser because of an informal policy that prevented them from talking with other people outside the executive chamber.
‘We were told right off the bat, as soon as we walk out of the office or as soon as we walk away from the governor, we were not to say a word about anything to anyone,’ she said.
McGrath alleged that Cuomo kissed her forehead during an office Christmas party in 2019 and was pictured smiling with his arms snugly wrapped around McGrath and the other woman.
That account echoes allegations made by Anna Ruch, another Cuomo accuser who claimed Cuomo put his hand on her bare lower back and asked her if he could kiss her during a wedding reception in September 2019.
Cuomo’s first accuser, Lindsey Boylan, has also claimed Cuomo gave her an unsolicited kiss, which the governor has denied.
This is a developing story
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