ALBANY – As Thanksgiving Day ended, so did a one-year window allowing adult survivors of alleged sexual abuse to file lawsuits seeking monetary damages, regardless of when the abuse occurred.
The Adult Survivors Act, passed by Albany lawmakers in 2022, has spurred thousands of lawsuits, a majority of which alleged sexual abuse had been committed by male prison or jail guards against female inmates. There were a number of lawsuits, including in Erie County, alleging that abuse had been committed by Catholic priests. And there were lawsuits against high-profile figures, including a recent legal summons alleging that New York City Mayor Eric Adams committed sexual assault against a woman in 1993. Adams denied the allegation and said he could not recall ever meeting the accuser.
On Wednesday, a former aide filed a lawsuit against ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his former counsel, and New York State, in State Supreme Court in Albany.
Her attorney wrote in a legal summons that Brittany Commisso had suffered “continuous sexual harassment” including “unwelcome sexual advances, sexualized comments about appearance and personal matters, relations, their dating, their sex life, and her marriage, assignment of humiliating and demeaning tasks, hugs, kisses, sexual touching of the buttocks, and forcible touching of the breast … “
The lawsuit includes Commisso’s previously made allegation that Cuomo forcibly groped her breast during an encounter in the Executive Mansion in 2020. That groping allegation was the subject of a misdemeanor criminal charge brought by the Albany County Sheriff’s Office in 2021, a charge that was ultimately dropped by the Albany District Attorney’s Office due to a lack of evidence. Cuomo’s attorney calls the allegations in the new lawsuit “provably false” and a “cash grab.”
The Adult Survivors Act was signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2022. On Nov. 24, 2022, a one-year window opened during which…
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