After more than 10 years as one of the most powerful governors in New York history, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now facing allegations of cover-ups and sexual harassment, along with multiple investigations that pose existential threats to his political career. 

Just a year ago, Cuomo was one of the most popular politicians in the country, with millions of Americans watching his press conferences on the pandemic every day. Comedians and celebrities joked that they were now “Cuomosexual”; the press conferences, frequently covered live by major television networks, earned him an Emmy award. 

Now, Cuomo is fighting for his political life. His administration is under for fire for how it counted the deaths of people living in nursing homes, and Cuomo himself is facing multiple allegations of sexual harassment, inappropriate behavior and bullying. 

These are not Cuomo’s first scandals. In his first term, Cuomo disbanded an anti-corruption panel he had put together after it began investigating his office. In 2018, a top aide — and main “enforcer” — was sentenced to six years in prison for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. 

But now, Cuomo’s alleged aggressive, retaliatory governing style — gleaned from decades of operating in New York’s rough-and-tumble political culture — has left him largely friendless at the highest echelons of the Democratic Party. Dozens of state lawmakers, and nearly the entire New York congressional delegation, including both senators, have called for him to resign over the allegations of sexual harassment. President Joe Biden has said that Cuomo should resign if an independent investigation substantiates the allegations. 

Here is a rundown of Cuomo’s crises. 

Allegations of Sexual Harassment

The first allegations barely made the headlines. In mid-December, Lindsey Boylan, a former Cuomo aide who is running to be Manhattan borough president, accused Cuomo of sexual harassment in a series of tweets. She did not speak to the news media about the allegations at the time. 

“I could never anticipate what to expect: would I be grilled on my work (which was very good) or harassed about my looks,” she wrote. “Or would it be both in the same conversation? This was the way for years.” 

Cuomo has repeatedly denied wrongdoing for all allegations of sexual harassment. 

On February 24, it was a different story when Boylan published an article on Medium expanding on the allegations, in the wake of several bombshell reports about how the Cuomo administration handled nursing home deaths. She accused Cuomo in one instance of allegedly kissing her on the lips after she briefed him one-on-one on economic development and infrastructure projects. 

Since then, multiple women, including former and current aides, have accused Cuomo of sexual harassment. The allegations have also led to a collective unburdening of many other former and current staff members on the alleged toxic and misogynist office cultures that they say Cuomo has fostered.

• Charlotte Bennett, a former aide, said that Cuomo asked her last year if she had sex with older men, which she took at the time as him asking if she would have sex with him. In a statement about the allegations, Cuomo said that he never intended “to act in any way that was inappropriate.”
• Karen Hinton, a former aide, said Cuomo embraced her in a hotel room in 2000 in a way that she described as “very long, too long, too tight, too intimate.” 
• A current female aide, who has not shared her identity publicly, said that Cuomo groped her breast in the executive mansion. Cuomo denied the allegation. 
• Alyssa McGrath, a current aide, said that Cuomo ogled her body in a meeting and made intrusive comments about her personal life. McGrath also said that the current aide who accused Cuomo of groping her breast described the incident to her in detail after it happened. 
• Ana Liss, a former aide, said that Cuomo often asked her intrusive questions about her dating life, would kiss her on the hand and once put his hand on her lower back while posing for a photograph.
• Jessica Bakeman, a former Albany reporter, described in a first-person essay how Cuomo repeatedly sexually harassed her by putting his arm around her in inappropriate ways, writing that Cuomo “uses touching and sexual innuendo to stoke fear in” women. 
• Anna Ruch, who has never worked for Cuomo, said that Cuomo grabbed her face in his hands at a wedding reception and asked her if he could kiss her, then attempting to as she pulled away. In a statement issued after the publication of the allegation, Cuomo said he was sorry if some of his past actions “have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation.” 

Calls to Resign and Investigations

New York State Attorney General Letitia James has hired two independent investigators to look into the allegations of sexual harassment. The investigators have subpoena power to get documents from the governor’s office and compel witness testimony, including from the governor himself. 

Carl Heastie, the speaker of the state Assembly, has authorized the Assembly’s judiciary committee to investigate both the allegations of sexual harassment and the Cuomo administration’s handling of nursing home deaths. The investigation could lead to New York’s first impeachment inquiry in more than a century. 

The allegation of groping by an unnamed current aide was also referred to the Albany police, which could trigger a criminal investigation. 

Cuomo is also facing calls to resign from both Republicans and Democrats in both state and federal government. 

Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the majority leader in the state Senate, also cited construction problems with the Mario Cuomo Bridge in her call for Cuomo to resign. Cuomo pushed to name the bridge after his father over objections of nearby residents. A major investigation by the Albany Times-Union found that the state slow-walked an investigation into bolt breakages and other structural issues with the bridge. Republican state lawmakers have called for a federal investigation into the construction issues, and safety concerns about the bridge could figure into the state Assembly's impeachment investigation into Cuomo.

In an emailed statement, the New York State Thruway Authority said that the Mario Cuomo Bridge is "is completely safe for the traveling public," citing a recent federal safety study that found no safety issues with the bridge.

Cuomo has repeatedly and strenuously pushed back on calls to resign, saying that he is awaiting the outcome of the state’s independent investigation into the allegations, which would likely take months to complete. 

Undercounting Nursing Home Deaths

Cuomo is also under fire for his administration’s handling of nursing home deaths. 

Early on in the pandemic, the state omitted deaths of nursing home residents who died after being transferred to hospitals, obscuring the full count of such residents who died from COVID-19. Cuomo’s administration also barred nursing homes from turning away residents being treated for COVID-19 who had been moved out of hospitals that were over capacity, which critics have said prioritized hospitals over nursing homes.  

The state later changed liability rules to make it harder for people to sue hospitals and nursing homes for malpractice and wrongful death related to COVID-19. 

On January 30, Attorney General James released a bombshell report alleging that the state, by not specifying the place of death of nursing home residents who had been transferred to hospitals and died there, had effectively undercounted nursing home deaths by more than 50%.

The report was followed by revelations that a top aide to Cuomo, Melissa DeRosa, had told Democratic lawmakers that they intentionally hid the actual number of nursing home resident deaths in order to avoid an investigation by the Trump administration.

Records obtained by the Associated Press also showed that more than 9,000 recovering COVID-19 patients were sent back to nursing homes from hospitals, a figure 40% higher than the state Department of Health had reported. 

In March, another news report said that top aides to Cuomo had re-written a state Department of Health report to delete the actual number of nursing home resident deaths caused by COVID-19. The number at that point, in June, was more than 9,000. The report was published in July, as Cuomo was working on a major book about his handling of the pandemic in New York. 

Many politicians, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, have called for an independent investigation into the Cuomo administration’s reporting of the nursing home deaths. 

Bullying a Lawmaker

On February 17, Assemblymember Ron Kim, who represents parts of Queens, said that Cuomo had threatened to “destroy” him in a phone call a week earlier. 

The call concerned a letter Kim had signed in response to news about Melissa DeRosa’s comments to lawmakers about the administration’s undercounting of nursing home deaths. The letter said that the lawmakers believed that it was “unambiguously clear” that Cuomo had obstructed justice in hiding the number of nursing home resident deaths. 

Cuomo’s aides have denied that Cuomo made the threat to destroy Kim. 

Since then, Kim has been a major voice calling for Cuomo to resign.

Coronavirus Tests for Cuomo’s Family 

Multiple outlets have also now reported that Cuomo used his position to get coronavirus tests for family members and at least one pharmaceutical company executive early in the pandemic, when tests were scarce and medical professionals were telling most people showing symptoms of COVID-19 to not seek testing for lack of availability. 

Cuomo’s brother Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor, as well as their mother and one of their sisters were tested personally by top state health officials, in some cases multiple times. 

In a statement to the Washington Post, Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi did not comment on the reports of tests provided to Cuomo family members. Azzopardi said that Cuomo’s administration was “absolutely going above and beyond to get people testing.”

“Among those we assisted were members of the general public, including legislators, reporters, state workers and their families who feared they had contracted the virus and had the capability to further spread it,” Azzopardi said. 

Dr. George Yancopoulos, the president of Regenron, a pharmaceutical company with close ties to Cuomo, also reportedly received special access to coronavirus tests in March 2020. On April 1, Cuomo announced that Regeneron would create 500,000 testing kits for COVID-19 and provide them without charge to New York. A spokesperson for Regeneron said Yancopoulos was not involved in the testing kit donation.

In response to the testing revelations, the state Assembly’s impeachment investigation has widened to examine if it was unlawful for Cuomo to provide the tests to family members. New York law covering public officers states that “No officer or employee of a state agency… should use or attempt to use his or her official position to secure unwarranted privileges or exemptions for himself or herself or others.”

Attorney General Letitia James has called on New York’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics to investigate the alleged preferential testing.