CUOMO & CO. CLEARED OF RETALIATING AGAINST STATE TROOPER ACCUSING HIM OF SEX HARASSMENT
FEDERAL COURT CLEARS FORMER GOV. ANDREW CUOMO OF RETALIATING AGAINST STATE TROOPER AFTER SHE ALLEGEDLY REBUFFED SEX ADVANCES
July 12, 2024
Andrew Cuomo did not retaliate against a State Trooper assigned to protect him who allegedly spurred his sex advances, a federal judge ruled on Friday.
"Even taking Plaintiff’s allegation as true, Cuomo’s employment relationship with Plaintiff ceased about six months prior to Cuomo’s alleged February 10, 2022 threat to seek 'criminal prosecution of his victims,'" Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall's 17-page decision says. "Without any such allegations, Plaintiff fails to meet the basic pleading standards for a retaliation claim."
The full decision is published below.
The State Trooper's claims against then-Gov. Cuomo were some of the most explosive allegations that forced him to resign in 2021. Of the 11 women who told Attorney General Letitia James' Cuomo harassed them, only two filed lawsuits against him: the State Trooper and Charlotte Bennett.
The court previously gave the State Trooper permission to proceed anonymously, notwithstanding that federal court rules do not allow any plaintiff's name to be kept secret. She is identified only as "Trooper 1" in legal documents, as she was in James' report.
Her name is revealed here for the first time: Jeanette Heimerle.
The Free Lance is taking this step because both she and Cuomo were public servants at the time of the alleged misconduct and her allegations contributed to driving a duly-elected governor from office before the expiration of his term.
THE FREE LANCE’S PREVIOUS REPORT ON THE LAWSUIT
Last year, one of the women who did not file a lawsuit against Cuomo but spoke with James in 2021, Ana Liss, testified in response to a subpoena from Heimerle that Cuomo did not sexually harass her, The Free Lance previously reported.
Heimerle's lawsuit alleges then-governor Andrew Cuomo subjected her to sexually-charged small-talk, touched her when she didn't want to be touched and asked for permission to kiss her, twice, according to James' report. The Trooper also alleged Cuomo, along with Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi and Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa, retaliated against her by threatening criminal prosecution in Feb. 2022.
It was these retaliation claims that were dismissed by Judge Hall. Like Cuomo, they too had left state service by the time of the alleged retaliation. The decision applies only to claims made under a New York State law. A seperate retaliation claim filed under federal law remains pending.
Cuomo's lawyer Rita Glavin called James' report "a political hatchet job" in a statement emailed to The Free Lance on Fri. "While politics and a reckless media mob carried the day in 2021, truth and the rule of law will ultimately prevail."
Azzopardi and DeRosa also issued a joint statement on Fri. They called Heimerle's lawsuit "a gross abuse of the court system and a transparent attempt to weaponize the Attorney General’s sham report for her own personal financial gain."
"We believe that Judge Hall's opinion demonstrates that Trooper #1's claims were frivolous and, as such, we are considering our legal options,” they added.
But Heimerle's lawyers, John C. Crain and Valdi Lichul of Wigdor, said Judge Hall's decision dismissing her retaliation claim "sets a dangerous precedent."
"It permits sexual harassers and their enablers who resign in disgrace to retaliate against their victims without any legal consequences," they added. They promised to "take all legal efforts to make sure that it does not stand."
The core of Heimerle's sex harassment claims, solely against Cuomo, still stand and are proceeding through discovery—a stage in lawsuits when plaintiffs and defendants gather evidence to support their allegations and defenses, respectively.
Glavin, Cuomo's lawyer, answered Heimerle’s remaining claims in her statement.
"We look forward," she said on Fri., "to the public seeing what we’ve learned through discovery and to prevailing in court.”
Read the decision below: