'Cuomo should quit if one more accuser comes forward' says NY's Democratic Senate majority leader after three women allege sexual harassment

• Andrea Stewart-Cousins said Cuomo should go if 'further people' come forward
• She said she might also call for Cuomo to quit if investigation finds against him
• The Democratic governor has refused to resign after three separate allegations 

The leader of New York's state senate says Andrew Cuomo should resign if one more person accuses the governor of sexual harassment in addition to the three who have come forward so far.   

Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Democratic majority leader in the New York Senate, told Spectrum News that if there are 'any further people coming forward, I think it would be time to resign'. 

'Quite honestly, I am so, so disappointed that here we are in 2021 and we are having these conversations on the heels of Me Too,' she said.  

She added that she might also call for Cuomo to quit if the investigation led by New York's attorney general Letitia James delivers a damning verdict. 

But the Democratic governor, who has apologized for acting 'in a way that made people feel uncomfortable', has so far held out against calls to resign. 

Cuomo is also under mounting pressure over the death toll from Covid-19 in New York's nursing homes amid claims that his office covered up the true figures.  

Stewart-Cousins made her comments before the broadcast of a CBS interview in which one of Cuomo's accusers, Charlotte Bennett, reiterated her allegations. 

After the interview aired, Stewart-Cousins separately told NY1 that Bennett's allegations were 'heartbreaking'. 

Bennett, a 25-year-old former aide, says Cuomo quizzed her about her sex life and told her he would consider dating 'anyone above the age of 22'.   

She said told Norah O'Donnell on CBS Evening News that she felt pressured because 'my boss was asking these questions, so I was trying to answer them.'  

'It didn't feel like I had a choice' when it came to answering Cuomo's questions, she said in the interview. 

'I feel like people put the onus on the woman to shut that conversation down. And by answering, I was somehow engaging in that or enabling it, when in fact, I was just terrified.' 

Another accuser, former Cuomo adviser Lindsey Boylan, said she came forward after Cuomo's name was mentioned as a possible cabinet nominee under Joe Biden.  

Cuomo, who is in his third term as governor, was believed to be a contender for attorney general before Biden selected federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland.  

Boylan told Harper's Bazaar that she woke up one day in December, and saw Cuomo 'being floated for attorney general, the highest law enforcement position in the US'.

After an unnamed woman reached out to her with a story of being harassed by Cuomo and seeing the possibility of him in the Biden administration being raised, she said, 'I didn't think about it at all... I began tweeting about my experience.' 

Boylan worked for Cuomo's team from March 2015 to October 2018 and recounted her story of sexual harassment in the series of Twitter posts.

She then elaborated on her accusations in a February 24 blog post in which she said Cuomo once suggested a game of strip poker. 

Boylan, 36, says the unwanted advances included an unsolicited kiss on the lips in Cuomo’s New York City office, which the governor denies. 

A third accuser, Anna Ruch, 33, told the NYT that Cuomo put his hands on her face and asked if he could kiss her after meeting her at a September 2019 wedding.

Facing calls for his resignation, Cuomo said Wednesday he would remain in office but apologized for acting 'in a way that made people feel uncomfortable.' 

He said he would cooperate with an investigation headed by attorney general Letitia James, a fellow Democrat.

Boylan told the magazine that she has been in touch with Bennett but not Ruch, adding that Ruch's story made her feel 'nauseous.'

She said another factor in her own decision to name Cuomo as her alleged harasser was a Cicely Tyson interview she watched after Tyson's death.

The pioneering actor cried telling the interviewer about an experience of sexual harassment 50 years earlier, Boylan recalled.

'I always thought that if I was ever going to tell my story, it was going to be many, many years from now,' Boylan said. 

'But the Tyson interview really resonated with me. It shows you how much abuse affects people.'