Photo: Getty Images North America
The US Department of Justice released details on Friday about a settlement it reached with New York State to resolve claims of sexual harassment against former governor Mario Cuomo. The document contends that the three-term governor, who was forced to resign in disgrace in August of 2021, harassed 13 women, though there were only 11 accusers known at the time Cuomo stepped down. Democrat strategist Melissa DeRosa was Governor Cuomo’s secretary from 2017 to 2021; as the person who controlled access to the governor, she says the report is full of holes. DeRosa appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to lay out what she says the settlement got wrong.
“The idea that they put this out is such malpractice and such a violation of due process,” DeRosa told Berman and Riedel. “It’s an eight-page agreement where there’s not a single person named. There’s not a single instance outlined. They’re not talking about how they’re applying the law in order to reach a conclusion that he violated these laws. They put out this document making these sweeping claims at the top, getting exactly what they want, which is these crazy headlines, and then buried at the bottom of the document it says, ‘This document shall not be construed to say that we’re conceding the facts or liability,’ and nobody involved was interviewed.”
DeRosa elaborated further that the lack of certain details in the report is what infuriates her most. “We’re in a moment when the American public needs to have faith in its justice system, and frankly, after what happened on Friday, nobody should. And the backstop to the justice system and to government and politics needs to be the fourth estate, which is the media, and nobody in the media is asking questions. Everyone just swallowed this and put up the headlines without saying, ‘Wait a minute, is it weird that nobody interviewed the governor and they’re making these conclusions’?”
Photo Credit: Getty Images