District Attorney David Soares, in a letter to an Albany, New York, judge, was critical of Albany’s sheriff, Craig Apple, for filing the criminal complaint against Cuomo without the knowledge of Soares, whose own investigation into the matter is still ongoing.
In the letter, Soares details how Apple’s surprise filing of charges could threaten the case that he is building against Cuomo and how in large high-profile cases coordination between the two is standard practice.
Soares also details flaws in Apple’s filing, that outside of the lack of coordination, could eventually hurt their case. He went as far as to say that it was “potentially defective,” particularly for failing to include a sworn statement from one alleged victim, Brittany Commisso.
Soares added that the complaint omitted pieces of testimony that Commisso provided to investigators from the state attorney general’s office and also asserted that one section of the complaint had misrepresented the law.
The District Attorney is seeking to delay Cuomo’s arraignment, a process in which a defendant is formally charged, from November 17th to January 7th, to decrease the likelihood that the case would be dismissed over procedural errors.
The criminal complaint stems from an incident in which Cuomo is alleged to have touched Commisso’s breast while at the governor’s mansion, in November 2020. Cuomo resigned in August amid an ongoing investigation into sexual misconduct and the misrepresentation of the number of nursing home deaths in New York state at the height of the first wave of the pandemic.