If former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wins the Democratic primary for mayor on Tuesday, it will mark the stunning resurrection of a man who just four years ago was hounded from office after the attorney general of New York found he had sexually harassed roughly a dozen women.
Where he once expressed some contrition, in the intervening years Mr. Cuomo has denied the accusations and argued that the attorney general, Letitia James, had mounted a political smear campaign in pursuit of her own gubernatorial ambitions. When the New York State Assembly and the Department of Justice issued their own scathing findings that echoed Ms. James’s report, Mr. Cuomo said they were nothing more than stale rehashes of the original, flawed investigation.
Mr. Cuomo has since used millions of dollars in state resources to mount a scorched-earth legal campaign against many of the women who accused him of mistreatment, even starting legal action just as he was planning his run for mayor that accused Charlotte Bennett — the second woman to accuse him of harassment — of defamation.
Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller who is also running for mayor, is among the candidates who have sought to focus voters’ attention on the matter. On Saturday, in one of his final campaign events, he invited both Ms. Bennett and Lindsey Boylan, the first of Mr. Cuomo’s staff members to publicly accuse him of harassment, to join him.
“This is a city that is going to show up for women,” Mr. Lander said Saturday. “This is a city that will never say we can forget sexual harassment and move on from it.”
While Ms. Boylan has remained an outspoken critic of Mr. Cuomo, Ms. Bennett has maintained a conspicuous silence, with victims’ lawyers arguing that the defamation action amounted to a clear effort to keep her from speaking out during the mayor’s race.
“I haven’t felt safe to comment,” Ms. Bennett said on Saturday. “And it’s felt like even showing up today was a risk. He’s a very powerful, well-connected, well-funded person who has made it clear that he’s fine to destroy my life if I get in the way of what he’s looking for.”
Mr. Cuomo, in turn, argued the whole matter was a “political ploy.”
“That has been reported, litigated, dissected 270 times,” he said Saturday. “And there’s no there there.”
The voters may or may not agree.
Tim Balk contributed reporting.
Dana Rubinstein covers New York City politics and government for The Times.
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