Edited by: TJV News
Now that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo finds himself in a proverbial quagmire as to whether to tender his resignation after the report from NY’s Attorney General Letitia James revealed that the governor was indeed guilty of sexual harassment of current and former aides, the calls for him to do so are growing louder with each passing moment.
According to a recent New York Post report, it appears that the “enforcer” behind Cuomo as well as his fierce protector and staunch advocate was his top aide, Melissa DeRosa. The Post has reported that she allegedly helped try to bury the sexual harassment allegations against him.
DeRosa is mentioned 187 times in the 165-report that independent investigators compiled and that Letitia James reported to the public only days ago. In it, DeRosa is mentioned as playing a key role in leaking the personnel file of one accuser in an attempt to discredit her, according to the Post report. The independent investigators have concluded that this is tantamount to unlawful retaliation, as was reported by the Post.
The report also alleges that DeRosa pressured a former staffer to secretly record a phone conversation with a government aide in the hopes of finding out what incriminatory information that she might have had on the governor, as was outlined in the Post. As the first female secretary to a New York governor, DeRosa also played a formidable role in crafting the governor’s policy on the coronavirus pandemic. She also helped him write his money-making memoir about his “leadership” during the virus crisis, while privately sharing information with a group of Democratic legislators about the alleged administration cover up of the massive amounts of Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes.
The Post reported that DeRosa, 38, is the daughter of Giorgio DeRosa, a leading Albany lobbyist. Before being hired by Cuomo as his secretary in 2013, DeRosa served in the capacity of acting chief of staff for ex-Atty General Eric Schneiderman as well as serving in the position of state director of the advocacy group, Organizing for America, as was reported by the Post.
In April of 2017 it was reported that Cuomo spokeswoman Dani Lever said that DeRosa, is “actively engaged” with the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, ethics-advisory agency for the state, “to ensure that even the appearance of impropriety is avoided,” prior to her taking the new secretary position at Cuomo’s office.
In an email at the time with Fox Business, DeRosa said, “This is not a new issue for me — my father went into this line of work over 25 years ago, and I have been involved in government and politics for over a decade. I have fully complied with the public-officers law recusal policy for years and am working with JCOPE to ensure the highest standards are met as I take on this new role.”
According to the Fox Business report, “The governor’s office also provided a memo from the Executive Chamber Ethics Officer that Ms. DeRosa signed in 2015, saying she has ‘voluntarily recused’ herself from any matters involving clients she ‘know[s] to be represented by Bolton-St. Johns,’ the lobbying firm where her father is a partner and her brother also is employed. But because of Ms. DeRosa’s great sway in the governor’s orbit, and the sprawling list of clients represented by her father’s firm, it would be difficult for her to have nothing to do with any of them, and she will have to navigate tricky circumstances, analysts said.”
In 2017 Cuomo said that DeRosa “is one of the young superstars in the business. Her father is a longtime, well-known lobbyist in Albany. Everybody knows that. So, I don’t see the issue whatsoever. People recuse themselves from items all the time.”
An unnamed source who maintains regular contact with DeRosa and Cuomo had previously told the Post that “Melissa is very fiercely loyal and protective of the governor. She can be very tough to deal with.DeRosa is feared. If you cross her, you’re crossing the governor.”
While investigators questioned DeRosa about her role in the Cuomo administration, she admitted that “she decided to release ex-aide Lindsey Boylan’s personnel record, including internal complaints, to certain media outlets in December after she consulted with other staffers on the matter, “ according to the Post report.
The Post reported that DeRosa said she made the decision because Boylan’s tweets about the governor ncluding that he was “one of the biggest abusers of all time” — had gotten “more and more escalating,” the report states.
