Time’s Up frontman quits after criticism of Cuomo links

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NEW YORK (AP) The chief of Time’s Up, the #MeToo-era organization founded by Hollywood women to fight sexual harassment, resigned Monday under criticism for advising the governor’s administration Andrew Cuomo behind the scenes in his effort to discredit one of Cuomo’s accusers.

Time’s Up has said in a tweet that it agrees with Roberta Kaplan that stepping down as chair of the group’s board of directors is the right and proper thing to do.

A report released last week by the New York attorney general found Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women. The allegations put the Democrat’s career in extreme jeopardy, threatening him with the possibility of impeachment and criminal charges.

Kaplan, a women’s rights activist who has her own law firm, advised the administration last winter when Cuomo was struck by the first of the harassment allegations, brought by former economic development adviser Lindsey Boylan .

Kaplan and Alphonso David, leader of the Human Rights Campaign, were consulted on a letter the Cuomo administration wrote attacking Boylan’s credibility. Kaplan and David agreed to review the letter.

According to the attorney general’s report, Kaplan told the administration that with some tweaking, the letter would be good to send. David, a former lawyer for Cuomo, refused to sign the letter but agreed to contact others to see if they would. Other advisers, however, said it was a bad idea, and the letter was never widely distributed.

Kaplan’s role in advising the Cuomo administration has stunned victims of sexual assault and others. Several former Time’s Up supporters sent an open letter on Monday demanding an investigation, accusing the organization’s leaders of lining up with the attackers to the detriment of the survivors.

Shame on TIMES UP, the letter said.

Activist Alison Turkos, who organized the letter, said victims of sexual assault felt they had been abandoned by so-called advocates who secretly worked for the other side.

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How do you tell survivors, Were you a safe space for yourself, come see us, but behind closed doors you give abusers a manual on how to cover and retaliate against your victims? asked Turkos, whose letter was signed by dozens of self-proclaimed victims, including Cuomo’s accuser Charlotte Bennett.

In her resignation letter, Kaplan said she reluctantly came to the conclusion that an active law firm was no longer compatible with serving on the Time’s Up board.

She added: Unfortunately, recent events have made it clear that even our apparent allies in the struggle for the advancement of women can turn out to be aggressors, “a reference to Cuomo’s public support for the #MeToo movement, which included his signing of radical new protections in 2019 against sexual harassment.

In addition to advising the Cuomo administration, Kaplan had more recently done legal work representing Melissa DeRosa, one of Cuomo’s top collaborators who resigned Sunday after the attorney general’s report described her as playing a central role in the lawsuits. retaliatory efforts against Boylan.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Campaign said it was launching an investigation into the merits of David’s actions.

David, in a statement on Monday, said he welcomed the review amid what he called multiple inaccuracies (which) were circulating. He said he only learned of the governor’s alleged misconduct from the attorney general’s report and neither signed nor circulated the letter. He admitted to handing over an electric copy of a memo about a state employee “after leaving government, but said he was legally obligated to do so.

I called for his resignation and reiterated that call today, he said of Cuomo.

Kaplan co-founded the Times Up Legal Defense Fund in 2018, which helps women who experience sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace.

She successfully represented Edith Windsor before the United States Supreme Court in 2013, winning the case that struck down laws against same-sex marriage in the United States. She then published a book on the case, Then Comes Marriage.

Kaplan also represents writer E. Jean Carroll, who filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump in 2019 over his claim the former president raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. Trump has denied Carroll’s allegations.

Carroll backed Kaplan in a tweet on Monday.

Robbie Kaplan is my lawyer and will always be my lawyer. She overthrew DOMA which inaugurated gay rights. She fights the Nazis in Charlottesville. She leads the battle for gender equality in women’s sport. She’s the best lawyer in America !! she wrote.

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Associated Press reporter Maryclaire Dale contributed to this report from Philadelphia.

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