Yesterday, former Gov. Cuomo was charged with one misdemeanor count of Forcible Touching for (allegedly) groping a female staff member’s breast during a meeting in the Executive Mansion. However, as you’ll see in a moment, there’s a report saying the summons ordering Cuomo to appear in court next month was filed prematurely. First, here’s how the NY Times reported on the charge yesterday:

For Mr. Cuomo, the complaint was a serious and potentially devastating development, as he continues to fight the allegations and attempts to discredit the report. It also served as a stunning chapter in the political demise of a man who dominated state politics for a decade, seemed on a glide path to a fourth term and, less than a year ago, was hailed as a national hero of the coronavirus pandemic…

The charge against Mr. Cuomo caught many in the state capital by surprise, including David Soares, the district attorney in Albany, who said in a statement that, “like the rest of the public, we were surprised to learn” about the complaint filed by the county’s sheriff, Craig Apple. In such investigations, prosecutors and local police departments typically work as partners in initiating the criminal process.

In a statement, Mr. Cuomo’s personal lawyer, Rita Glavin, said the governor had “never assaulted anyone” and described Mr. Apple’s motives as “patently improper.” She criticized Mr. Apple for not communicating with the district attorney and accused him of effectively pronouncing the governor guilty at a news conference earlier this year before an investigation by his office had concluded.

“This is not professional law enforcement,” she said. “This is politics.”

The claim that this is all politics might normally be dismissed as spin from an attorney working for a political defendant, but in this case it appears something fishy really did happen here. According to the Albany Times Union, the summons was filed prematurely, without speaking with Brittany Commisso, the alleged victim in the case. Here’s how it happened:

A sheriff’s investigator who had been a lead investigator in the case, in which the governor was accused of groping Commisso at the Executive Mansion last year, had met with a City Court official on Thursday to receive “guidance” if the department were to move forward with filing a complaint — something that was supposed to happen next week at the earliest, according to a law enforcement source.

It’s unclear what happened after that, but a person briefed on the matter and not authorized to comment publicly said that someone in City Court issued the summons after determining the paperwork submitted by the investigator was sufficient to do so. The investigator had apparently filed the paperwork in anticipation of obtaining a summons next week if the victim agreed to go forward with any charges, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Commisso’s attorney was surprised when the summons first made headlines yesterday saying he had expected his client would be allowed to make the final decision about whether to proceed with the case. Prior to this snafu, the DA and the Sheriff’s Office were scheduled to meet to discuss the case today and an announcement about moving forward could have been made next week. But despite the error, later in the day Commisso’s attorney essentially gave his blessing to moving forward saying his client, “will remain a resolute cooperating victim in pursuit of blind justice.”

So there was a procedural error here but it appears this is where we were headed anyway. One person who was quick to fall in line was AG Letitia James:

Despite the confusion over the filing of the complaint, state Attorney General Letitia James issued a statement Thursday afternoon saying her office had “proceeded without fear or favor” in its investigation.

“The criminal charges brought today against Mr. Cuomo for forcible touching further validate the findings in our report,” James said.

James is expected to announce very soon that she is running for governor. That, in combination with this procedural mistake, will be enough for Cuomo’s attorneys to claim this is all political. I guess we’ll have to wait to see if that defense works.

In case you’ve forgotten the details, the incident the charges are based on allegedly happened last December. Brittany Commisso, identified in the AG report as Executive Assistant #1, came forward in March somewhat accidentally. She was at work watching Cuomo’s televised denial that he had touched anyone inappropriately and she suddenly burst into tears. A female supervisor came to her desk to see what was wrong and Commisso told her the groping story. She later told the full story in her own words to the Times Union and then did a television interview with CBS News in August. Here’s the CBS report in which Commisso describes what happened to her.

Update: A heated statement from Cuomo’s spokesman accusing AG James of playing politics and Shefiff Apple of misconduct.

#BREAKING: New statement from Cuomo's spokesman: "This isn't the wild west: the abuse of power and misconduct demonstrated by this Cowboy Sheriff and AG James is transparent and it has to stop." pic.twitter.com/dFE6vebxyT

— 1010 WINS (@1010WINS) October 29, 2021