A second former aide to New York governor Andrew M. Cuomo is accusing him of sexual harassment, saying that he asked her questions about her sex life, whether she was monogamous in her relationships and if she had ever had sex with older men.

The aide, Charlotte Bennett, who was an executive assistant and health policy adviser in the Cuomo administration until she left in November, told The New York Times that the governor had harassed her late last spring, during the height of the state’s fight against the coronavirus.

Bennett, 25, said the most unsettling episode occurred on June 5, when she was alone with Cuomo in his State Capitol office.

In a series of interviews this week, she said the governor had asked her numerous questions about her personal life, including whether she thought age made a difference in romantic relationships, and had said that he was open to relationships with women in their 20s — comments she interpreted as clear overtures to a sexual relationship.

Cuomo said in a statement to The Times on Saturday that he believed he had been acting as a mentor and had “never made advances toward Ms Bennett, nor did I ever intend to act in any way that was inappropriate”.

Cuomo’s office on Saturday asked the New York attorney-general and the chief judge of the Court of Appeals to choose a lawyer to conduct an independent review of the sexual misconduct allegations brought against the governor.

Bennett said that during the June encounter, the governor, 63, also complained to her about being lonely during the pandemic, mentioning that he “can’t even hug anyone”, before turning the focus to Bennett. She said Cuomo asked her, “Who did I last hug?”

Bennett said she had tried to dodge the question by responding that she missed hugging her parents. “And he was, like, ‘No, I mean like really hugged somebody?’” she said.

Cuomo never tried to touch her, Bennett said, but the message of the entire episode was unmistakable to her. “I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me, and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared,” Bennett said.

Bennett said she had disclosed the interaction with Cuomo to his chief of staff, Jill DesRosiers, less than a week later and was transferred to another job, as a health policy adviser, with an office on the opposite side of the Capitol, soon after that.

The New York Times News Service