Former Cuomo Aide Lindsey Boylan Accuses Governor of Pervasive Sexual Harassment and Unwanted Kissing in Shocking Piece (UPDATE: Cuomo Denies)

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Democratic politician Lindsey Boylan accused Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) of sexual harassment in a lengthy column, writing that he “created a culture within his administration where sexual harassment and bullying is so pervasive that it is not only condoned but expected.”

Boylan — a Cuomo aide who served as chief of staff at the state economic development agency — claimed the governor once remarked during a flight that they should play strip poker, and asked colleagues of her whereabouts because he had a “crush” on her.

“It was an uncomfortable but all-too-familiar feeling: the struggle to be taken seriously by a powerful man who tied my worth to my body and my appearance,” she wrote, adding, “His inappropriate behavior toward women was an affirmation that he liked you, that you must be doing something right. He used intimidation to silence his critics. And if you dared to speak up, you would face consequences.”

Boylan included screenshots of an email from another Cuomo aide, Stephanie Benton, conveying a message purportedly from the governor. The message noted that Boylan and Lisa Shields,  Cuomo’s rumored ex-girlfriend, “could be sisters. Except you’re the better looking sister.”

“The Governor began calling me ‘Lisa’ in front of colleagues,” Boylan added. “It was degrading.”

Boylan included screenshots of alleged texts she sent to her mother detailing how Cuomo made her feel uncomfortable in her own workplace.

“He is a sexist pig and you should avoid being alone with him!” Boylan’s mother replied.

Boylan also noted that she had decided to go public with her allegations of Cuomo’s harassment in a series of tweets last December because she was concerned he would become U.S. Attorney General — “the highest law enforcement official in the land.”

“Yes, @NYGovCuomo sexually harassed me for years. Many saw it, and watched,” Boylan tweeted in December. “I could never anticipate what to expect: would I be grilled on my work (which was very good) or harassed about my looks. Or would it be both in the same conversation? This was the way for years.”

Boylan wrote in her new piece for Medium that she did not fear Cuomo until December 2016, when she said she left a party to distance herself from Cuomo and quickly “received a call from an unlisted number.”

“It was the Governor’s body person,” she wrote. “He told me to come to the Capitol because the Governor wanted to see me.”

Boylan said she was eventually escorted to Cuomo’s office, where she tried to maintain her distance as he gave her a private tour.

“He paused at one point and smirked as he showed off a cigar box. He told me that President [Bill] Clinton had given it to him while he served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The two-decade old reference to President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky was not lost on me,” she said. “The Governor must have sensed my fear because he finally let me out of the office. I tried to rationalize this incident in my head. At least he didn’t touch me. That made me feel safer.”

She wrote that his “inappropriate gestures” became more frequent, and that he “gave roses to female staffers on Valentine’s Day and arranged to have one delivered to me, the only one on my floor.”

Boylan wrote that she tried to excuse Cuomo’s behavior, rationalizing his misdeeds were “only words,” but that outlook changed after a one-on-one briefing with the governor.

“We were in his New York City office on Third Avenue,” she wrote. “As I got up to leave and walk toward an open door, he stepped in front of me and kissed me on the lips. I was in shock, but I kept walking.”

“After that, my fears worsened. I came to work nauseous every day,” she said. “My relationship with his senior team — mostly women — grew hostile after I started speaking up for myself. I was reprimanded and told to get in line by his top aides, but I could no longer ignore it.”

Boylan revealed that two women approached her after her December tweets, with one claiming to be constantly scared of what Cuomo would do if they rejected his advances.

“The other said she was instructed by the Governor to warn staff members who upset him that their jobs could be at risk,” Boylan wrote. “Both told me they are too afraid to speak out.”

The accusation comes hours after another former Cuomo aide, Karen Hinton, accused the governor of “gender domination” in the workplace. In a New York Daily News op-ed, Hinton alleged that Cuomo cost her a job in 1998 after she went public about an advance by President Bill Clinton.

“In 1998 at HUD, I spoke up about a clumsy pick-up attempt Bill Clinton made on me when I was a 26-year-old campaign operative and he was governor of Arkansas,” Hinton wrote. “It cost me a Senate-confirmed appointment when Cuomo quietly had the White House pull my nomination.”

UPDATE 4:40 p.m. ET — In a statement provided to Mediaite, Cuomo’s press secretary Caitlin Girouaud denied the allegations.

“As we said before, Ms. Boylan’s claims of inappropriate behavior are quite simply false,” Girouaud said.

Further, the governor’s office provided a joint statement from aides John Maggiore, Howard Zemsky, Dani Lever and Abbey Fashouer Collins refuted Boylan’s account of an October 2017 conversation in which Boylan claimed that Cuomo asked her to play strip poker.

“We were on each of these October flights and this conversation did not happen,” the four Cuomo aides said in their statement.