New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned from office Tuesday, one week after an investigation concluded that he had sexually harassed 11 women and retaliated against his accusers.
At a press conference Tuesday, Cuomo announced that he would step down from the office. His resignation will be effective in 14 days.
“The best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing, and therefore, that’s what I’ll do, because I work for you, and doing the right thing is doing the right thing for you,” Cuomo said.
The decision to resign spared Cuomo, who has been governor since 2011 and is the son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a potentially lengthy impeachment trial in the New York Assembly that was likely to have ousted him from power.
Lt. Kathy Hochul is now preparing to step in as governor. A native of Buffalo, Hochul will be the first female governor of New York. She had been serving under Cuomo since 2014 and has a long history of working in New York state politics, having served in Congress and as a county clerk.
Hochul wouldn’t be the first lieutenant governor to assume the gubernatorial position. In 2008, then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned following a prostitution scandal and was succeeded by his lieutenant governor, David Paterson.
On Aug. 3, State Attorney General Letitia James announced the results of an investigation into allegations made against the governor by women who worked for or alongside Cuomo. According to James, the report revealed “a deeply disturbing yet clear picture” in which the governor “sexually harassed multiple women, many of whom were young women, by engaging in unwanted groping, kisses, hugging, and by making inappropriate comments.”
The 165-page report also found that the governor’s conduct created “a hostile work environment for women” and that Cuomo staffers had retaliated against at least one of his accusers, who included gubernatorial aides and a New York state trooper assigned to protect him. The investigation took nearly five months and included interviews with 179 people.
Initially, Cuomo insisted that he would not leave office because of the investigation, saying in a taped recording that he “never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances,” the Associated Press reported.
