Anna Ruch told The New York Times that Gov. Andrew Cuomo asked if he could kiss her at a wedding in 2019.
Before I continue I must ask you to please remember those who died in nursing homes due to Cuomo’s COVID-19 order last March.
Look at Ruch’s face in this picture.
From The New York Times:
For Ms. Ruch, the circumstances were different, her exchange with the governor taking place at a well-attended celebration far from any official setting. In fact, the episode’s highly visible nature made it all the more jarring, she suggested. She recalled Mr. Cuomo moving his hand to the small of her back — exposed in an open-back dress — within moments of their being introduced and shaking hands at the reception.Ms. Ruch said that touch, on her bare skin, discomfited her. “I promptly removed his hand with my hand, which I would have thought was a clear enough indicator that I was not wanting him to touch me,” she said.Instead, Ms. Ruch said, Mr. Cuomo called her “aggressive” and placed his hands on her cheeks.“He said, ‘Can I kiss you?’” Ms. Ruch said. “I felt so uncomfortable and embarrassed when really he is the one who should have been embarrassed.” (A friend captured the exchange in a series of photographs taken on Ms. Ruch’s cellphone.)Shaken, Ms. Ruch said, she later had to ask a friend if Mr. Cuomo’s lips had made contact with her face as she pulled away. The governor had kissed her cheek, she was told.“It’s the act of impunity that strikes me,” Ms. Ruch said. “I didn’t have a choice in that matter. I didn’t have a choice in his physical dominance over me at that moment. And that’s what infuriates me. And even with what I could do, removing his hand from my lower back, even doing that was not clear enough.”
Ruch posed with Cuomo for a picture, but her friend asked her if she was okay:
“It was when my friend looked at me and said, ‘Are you OK?’ with such genuine concern in her face that I realized how obviously inappropriate it was,” Ms. Ruch said, “not only to me but to those around me as well.”In a text message a day or so later, Ms. Ruch wrote to the friend, “I’m so pissed,” referring to the governor as “this guy,” with an epithet in that description.After collecting herself later that night, Ms. Ruch said, she had hoped to speak with the governor before he left the reception and confront him about his behavior.But by then, she said, she could not find him.“I would have rather just said it that night,” she said. “I wanted to say, ‘That wasn’t OK.’”
Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY) is the first Democrat from the New York delegation to demand Cuomo’s resignation. Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) agreed with Rice.
Ruch is the third woman to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment in the past week. Two former aides accused him of sexual harassment: Charlotte Bennett and Lindsey Boylan. Investigative journalist Lindsay Nielsen also described intimidation efforts by Cuomo’s administration.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY