A former aide believes Gov. Andrew Cuomo was “trying to sleep with me” during a one-on-one meeting at his Albany office last year, according to a television interview aired Thursday night.
During a segment on CBS Evening News, Charlotte Bennett, 25, was asked by anchor Norah O’Donnell what she thought when Cuomo, 63, asked her questions about her sex life on June 5. .
“I thought he was trying to sleep with me. The governor is trying to sleep with me and I am deeply uncomfortable and I have to get out of this room as soon as possible, ”Bennett said.
“What made you think he was trying to sleep with you?” O’Donnell asked.
“Without saying it explicitly, he made me understand that I was old enough for him and that I was alone,” Bennett said.
At one point, O’Donnell asked Bennett if Cuomo was likely to be “encouraged” by all the “national attention” he got from his coronavirus television briefings.
“Absolutely. I think he felt untouchable in many ways, ”he replied.
Bennett also told O’Donnell that he had no doubt about Cuomo’s motives.
“Do you think I was proposing to you?” O’Donnell asked.
“Yes,” Bennett replied.
“For what?” O’Donnell asked.
“Sex,” Bennett replied.
During a previous May 15 conversation, Bennett recalled, Cuomo seemed set on his survival story of sexual assault.
“So he says,‘ You were raped. They raped you. You were raped, abused and assaulted, “he said.
A second part of the interview will air on Friday on “CBS This Morning,” and O’Donnell scheduled part of it during an appearance on local CBS-2 News at 5 p.m.
O’Donnell said Bennett “says Governor Cuomo is, in her words, a textbook abuser” and “even uses words like this that were prepared for that relationship.”
Bennett is one of three women whose charges are the subject of an pending investigation by an independent law firm that will appoint Attorney General Letitia James.