The longtime chief of staff to Letitia James, the New York attorney general, has resigned amid an investigation into misconduct, and three people with knowledge of the matter said it involved at least two sexual harassment allegations.
The former chief of staff, Ibrahim Khan, had been one of Ms. James’s closest political advisers for nearly a decade. He was accused of inappropriate touching and unwanted kissing by at least one woman. Ms. James hired a law firm to investigate the allegations, two of the people with knowledge of the matter said.
One woman who filed a complaint was told on Friday that her allegation of inappropriate touching and unwanted kissing had been substantiated.
Mr. Khan defended himself in a statement and said he had been planning to leave his post by Dec. 31, the end of Ms. James’s first term. She was re-elected last month.
“I’ve been slated to leave the office for the private sector at the end of this year,” Mr. Khan said in the statement. “This is unrelated to an investigation which, nevertheless, found no official workplace misconduct,” adding he “is proud of all we have achieved over these past four years in serving New Yorkers.”
Mr. Khan’s claim that the investigation found “no official workplace misconduct” could not be corroborated immediately and a spokeswoman for Ms. James did not immediately respond to a request to confirm it.
The allegations involved former employees of the office, according to two of the people with knowledge of the matter.
The office confirmed the resignation in a statement.
“The office of attorney general has protocols in place to thoroughly investigate any allegation of misconduct,” said a spokeswoman. “The office takes these matters with the utmost seriousness and this situation is no different. An independent, impartial investigation was conducted, and the employee has since resigned.”
The accusations against Mr. Khan, who began working for Ms. James as spokesman for her campaign for New York City public advocate in 2013 and then, after she took office, as her chief of staff, were particularly sensitive for Ms. James, who oversaw a 2021 sexual harassment inquiry of New York’s governor at the time, Andrew M. Cuomo.
When investigators hired by Ms. James’s office determined that Mr. Cuomo had sexually harassed multiple women over a seven-year period, Ms. James spoke out forcefully against him.
‘No man — no matter how powerful — can be allowed to harass women,” she said in a statement.
Mr. Cuomo resigned soon after.
In Mr. Khan’s case, multiple allegations were reported to the attorney general’s office by a political consultant, not by the victims themselves, according to one of the people with knowledge of the matter.
Ms.James made the decision to hire an outside law firm to investigate the accusations. It was not clear when Ms. James was told of the allegations, or when the firm was hired.
In 2017, when Ms. James was the city’s public advocate and Mr. Khan was her chief of staff, The New York Post reported that a former employee of the office had accused Mr. Khan of drugging and sexual assaulting her at a holiday party.
The Post reported that two investigative agencies, the city’s Department of Investigation and the Manhattan district attorney’s office, had investigated the matter and closed it.
The article is no longer available on The Post’s website, and the former employee could not be reached for comment.
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