Andrew Cuomo to not be charged for allegedly inappropriately touching female state trooper

A county prosecutor said on Thursday that former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will not face criminal charges following a female state trooper accusing him of touching her inappropriately in 2019.

That incident was part of an investigation by the state’s Attorney General Letitia James into Cuomo’s conduct. The trooper, identified in the attorney general’s report as “Trooper No. 1,” had been assigned as Cuomo’s protection during a 2019 event at the Belmont Park racetrack.

Testimony transcripts recall that the former governor ran the palm of his left hand across the trooper’s stomach. “And while he’s walking and we’re in motion,” the trooper said, “while he’s walking into the door, he takes his left hand and basically, like, thumb facing down, I felt the palm of his hand in the center of my stomach on my bellybutton and, like, pushed back towards my right hip, like where my gun is.” 

She continued in the report, “So he’s walking one way, his hand is running across my stomach in the opposite direction. I felt like completely violated because, to me, that’s between my chest and my privates, which, you know, if he was a little bit north or a little bit south, it’s not good.”

Nassau County’s acting district attorney Joyce Smith said that after an “exhaustive investigation” into the allegations, and while they were found “credible, deeply troubling,” they were “not criminal under New York law.”

In a statement on Twitter, Rich Azzopardi, Cuomo’s spokesperson, criticized James by saying she was using the former governor’s scandal as a “political springboard” in her bid for the office next year.

“With each passing day, it becomes more and more clear that the Attorney General’s report was the intersection of gross prosecutorial misconduct and an abuse of government power for political purposes,” he tweeted.

“Her press conference claimed ’11 cases of violations of federal and state laws,’ ignited the cancel culture mentality, and started a media and political stampede against governor Cuomo.” As sexual harassment allegations by several women kept coming in, Cuomo resigned from office in August. He has also denied the claims against him.