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New Allegations, Chris Cuomo Allegedly Sexual Harassed Female Producer at ABC


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The Cuomo brothers are both gross individuals, and have proven so time and time again.

Despite the fact that Andrew Cuomo got thousands of nursing home patients killed, it took allegations of sexual misconduct to oust him from power.

Apparently Fredo has just as little respect for women as his older brother does.

A former executive producer from ABC has come out publicly with allegations of sexual harrassment against the younger Cuomo.

She says that at a work party in 2005, Cuomo grabbed her butt in front of dozens of coworkers, as well as her husband.

Cuomo later wrote an incincere apology letter, where he called it a “hearty greeting.”

The New York Post has the latest on the allegations against Cuomo from the former ABC producer:

A former ABC executive producer has accused Chris Cuomo of sexually harassing her at a 2005 work party after he grabbed her butt in front of her husband and co-workers — and he later called it a “hearty greeting.”

Shelley Ross, a veteran TV journalist, detailed the incident at an Upper West Side bar in a New York Times op-ed Friday.

She said Cuomo sent an email in the aftermath telling her he was “ashamed” — but quickly tried to show his actions were different from an actor accused of doing the same to a stranger on the street.  

Ross said she was working as an executive producer of an ABC entertainment program at the time, but had been Cuomo’s boss on ABC’s “Primetime Live” just prior.

“I was at the party with my husband, who sat behind me on an ottoman sipping his Diet Coke as I spoke with work friends. When Mr. Cuomo entered the Upper West Side bar, he 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,” she said.

“’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.”

Cuomo then sent Ross an email, dated June 1, 2005, with the subject title: “Now that I think of it … I am ashamed.”

He compared his actions to “Heathers” actor Christian Slater, who had been arrested a month earlier for sexually harassing a woman on a New York City street after grabbing her butt. The charges against Slater were later dropped.

“Though my hearty greeting was a function of being glad to see you … Christian Slater got arrested for a (kind of) similar act (though borne 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,” Cuomo wrote.

“So pass along my apology to your very good and noble husband … and I apologize to you as well, for ever putting you in such a position.

Here's more on the incident, including Ross' response to Cuomo's "apology" from Fox News:

"Mr. Cuomo may say this is a sincere apology. I’ve always seen it as an attempt to provide himself with legal and moral coverage to evade accountability," Ross wrote.

CNN did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ross wrote she didn't wish for Cuomo to be fired from CNN, where he's worked since 2013. However, she noted his rhetoric in March while addressing his brother's political scandal, where he claimed to care "very deeply about these issues." That day, Cuomo said he would not cover the harassment charges against his brother, after he was allowed to do friendly interviews with him at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Two months later, the Washington Post reported that Chris Cuomo participated in strategy calls with Gov. Cuomo's top aides on how to address the harassment charges. Sources told the paper the younger Cuomo urged his brother to not step down and even invoked "cancel culture," a talking point the governor used back in March while engaging with reporters.

A report from New York Attorney General Letitia James would later note he was one of the trusted outside confidants whose commitment to protecting the governor contributed to Albany's "toxic" workplace culture. Gov. Cuomo resigned from office last month.

Between that, and an image of Chris Cuomo wearing a "Truth" t-shirt shortly after his brother's exit from office, Ross said she was compelled to speak out.

"For me, his statement of profound concern about sexual harassment and his ‘Truth’ T-shirt were provocations in this era of personal accountability," she wrote.

In a statement to the Times, Cuomo reiterated his apology to Ross while noting their interaction was "not sexual in nature."

"As Shelley acknowledges, our interaction was not sexual in nature. It happened 16 years ago in a public setting when she was a top executive at ABC. I apologized to her then, and I meant it," Cuomo said.

Cuomo did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment by Fox News.

While sexual misconduct accusations resulted in Andrew Cuomo stepping down as governor, Ross doesn’t want the younger sibling to lose his job. Instead, she hopes that he uses his platform to "journalistically repent" for his behavior.

"I’m not asking for Mr. Cuomo to become the next casualty in this continuing terrible story. I hope he stays at CNN forever if he chooses. I would, however, like to see him journalistically repent: agree on air to study the impact of sexism, harassment and gender bias in the workplace, including his own, and then report on it," Ross wrote. "He could host a series of live town hall meetings, with documentary footage, produced by women with expert consultants. Call it ‘The Continuing Education of Chris Cuomo’ and make this a watershed moment instead of another stain on the career of one more powerful male news anchor."



 

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