Steve Cohen, a longtime advisor to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo who had been appointed to lead the state's chief economic development arm is resigning from the post, Gov. Kathy Hochul's office on Wednesday said. 

Cohen was among the Cuomo advisors and aides named in a report released this month the state attorney general's office as part of an effort to allegedly retaliate against Lindsey Boylan, one of the women who accused the former governor of sexual harassment. 

Cohen had also publicly defended Cuomo earlier this year when allegations of sexual harassment first became public. 

"I can tell you never in my time working with the governor, the former attorney general, private citizen Andrew Cuomo, I have never seen anything of the like of what Ms. Boylan has described," he said during a March conference call. "His conduct has always been in my presence with the members of other staff, appropriate — not that it is always fun-loving and a good time — but it is always appropriate and he pushes to get results. Those results are obvious to everyone." 

Hochul has said anyone who was implicated in the attorney general's report would not have a place in her administration.