Charlotte Bennett says she thought Gov. Cuomo was trying to sleep with her

Bennett was asked what made her think Cuomo was trying to sleep with her.

“Without explicitly saying it, he implied to me that I was old enough for him and he was lonely,” Bennett said.

Bennett, a 25-year-old former executive assistant and health policy adviser to Cuomo, first told her story to the New York Times last week. Bennett told the Times that the governor had asked her a series of personal questions, including stating that he was open to relationships with women in their 20s.

In his initial response to Bennett’s story in the Times last week, Cuomo said 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 issued a more direct apology in a press briefing on Wednesday, his first since the harassment allegations were made public.

“I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable. It was unintentional and I truly and deeply apologize for it. I feel awful about it, and frankly, I am embarrassed by it, and that’s not easy to say but that’s the truth,” Cuomo said.

In a statement released after Cuomo’s apology on Wednesday in which he did not mention Bennett by name, Debra Katz, an attorney for Bennett, said the news conference was “full of falsehoods and inaccurate information” and rejected Cuomo’s claim that he didn’t know he was making anyone uncomfortable.

“My client, Charlotte Bennett, reported his sexually harassing behavior immediately to his Chief of Staff and Chief Counsel. We are confident that they made him aware of her complaint and we fully expect that the Attorney General’s investigation will demonstrate that Cuomo administration officials failed to act on Ms. Bennett’s serious allegations or to ensure that corrective measures were taken, in violation of their legal requirements,” Katz said.

CBS is scheduled to air another portion of Bennett’s interview during the “CBS Evening News” and Friday morning on “CBS This Morning.”

source: cnn.com