Runs in the Family? CNN's Chris Cuomo Accused of Sexual Harassment Too, Multiple Witnesses
A Cuomo brother has been accused of sexual harassment.
This time, however, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo isn’t the one under the gun.
Instead, in a Friday Op-Ed for The New York Times, veteran television journalist Shelley Ross revealed that Chris Cuomo — CNN anchor and brother of Andrew Cuomo — was the one who sexually harassed her.
Apparently, it runs in the family.
Ross was Cuomo’s boss at ABC News “nearly two decades ago” and, at a 2005 going-away party for an ABC colleague, she said he groped her.
“… [H]e walked toward me and greeted me with a strong bear hug while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my buttock,” Ross wrote.
“‘I can do this now that you’re no longer my boss,’ he said to me with a kind of cocky arrogance. ‘No you can’t,’ I said, pushing him off me at the chest while stepping back, revealing my husband who had seen the entire episode at close range. We quickly left.”
It wasn’t too long after that Ross received an email from Cuomo with the subject line “Now that I think of it … I am ashamed.”
In the email, Cuomo profusely apologizes and attempts to play off the incident by painting it as merely a consequence of how happy he was to see Ross. Cuomo doesn’t take accountability for his actions; he merely creates excuses:
“though my hearty greeting was a function of being glad to see you,” he wrote, “christian slater got arrested for a (kind of) similar act (though bourne of an alleged negative intent, unlike my own) … and as a husband i can empathize with not liking to see my wife patted as such …”
“so pass along my apology to your very good and noble husband … and i apologize to you as well, for even putting you in such a position … next time, i will remember the lesson, no matter how happy i am to see you …”
You would think if Cuomo really cared so much, he wouldn’t be offering up so many excuses.
Also, if he cared so much, he’d probably be using proper punctuation and capitalization.
Ross sensed as much, noting in her Op-Ed that she’s “always seen” his written apology as “an attempt to provide himself with legal and moral coverage to evade accountability.”
He must be pretty good at doing so, given that he also advised his brother during the former governor’s own sexual harassment scandal.
In the end, both Cuomo brothers are everything they accuse Republicans of being.
They’re both rich, privileged men who prey on others to fulfill their twisted desires.
They’re predators and, finally, the time has come for the Cuomos to face accountability.
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