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Thursday, December 8, 2022
We have talent
Each & every year the sexual harassment tracing video in New York will be made by real world blood & flesh human beings residing or working in the kingdom of New York
Shoeing the same video year after year with martians needs a dose of documentary film making with members of “the screen actors guild” of kingdom New York
Sofia Quintanar, 33, told The New York Timesthat she was among the women whose accusations led to the resignation of former James chief of staff Ibrahim Khan.
“I find it just appalling to see how the office handled this publicly,” she said in the report Wednesday.
Quintanar said James withheld the allegations against Khan in a bid to let him resign with his reputation intact — and compared the alleged cover-up to the AG’s aggressive investigation that forced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign in disgrace last year.
Quintanar told the Times that the married Khan grabbed her and “stuck his tongue down my throat” outside a Brooklyn bar in November 2021 and that when she later told a colleague about it, the unidentified woman began to cry.
Khan allegedly groped that other woman and kissed her against her will, two people familiar with the accusation told the Times.
Quintanar, who formerly worked for James as a deputy press secretary but left in 2021 to become a campaign consultant, told the Times that the alleged incident involving Khan took place in November 2021 outside the Someday Bar in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill.
State Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn) was holding a fundraiser there and Quintanar went to reconnect with old friends and try to drum up business, her pal Amy Bettys, who accompanied Quintanar, told the Times.
Sofia Quintanar accused New York Attorney General Letitia James of attempting to cover up sexual allegations against her former chief of staff Ibrahim Khan.Paul Martinka
Quintanar said she and Khan talked politics over drinks at the bar then went outside to continue chatting when it got too noisy.
Khan allegedly grabbed her by the shoulder, pulled her in and “stuck his tongue down my throat,” she said.
“I don’t even know how to describe the feeling, honestly, just disappointment in someone that I considered a respected boss, a former respected boss who just months ago, the Cuomo stuff had just happened to,” Quintanar told the Times.
“And I was just in pure shock. We just went through all of this with someone else. How can you think this was OK?”
Quintanar said she immediately confronted Khan before going back into the bar.
Bettys said that her friend appeared upset and that Khan kept trying to speak into her ear.
The women left soon after and Quintanar told Bettys what allegedly happened, the Times said.
Quintanar said Khan sent her a text message the next day and that when they spoke later, he merely asked if she’d made it home safely.
Sofia Quintanar said she was one of the women who accused Khan of sexual harassment.@sofia.quintanar1
“I thought he was calling to apologize but he just acted like it didn’t happen,” she said.
Quintanar initially kept silent, saying, “There was no reason for me to come forward. No one was there other than him and I. There was alcohol involved.”
“I just thought, who would ever believe my story?” she said.
But several months later, Quintanar reportedly shared her alleged experience with the woman who broke down in tears.
“And that’s when I was like this is not just me anymore,” she said. “There’s a pattern. I’m not the only person.”
Quintanar also blasted Khan’s statement last week in which he said the AG’s investigation of him “found no official workplace misconduct.”
“To see how Ibrahim responded by splitting hairs and saying, ‘Oh it wasn’t workplace, it didn’t happen in the workplace,’ like that’s supposed to make it better,” she said.
Quintanar said James withheld the allegations against Khan to let him resign without ruining his reputation.Albany.edu
James made her first public comments on the Khan scandal when The Post confronted her outside her Brooklyn brownstone Wednesday morning.
The Democrat denied that she hid the allegations against Khan to win reelection last month after refusing to debate her Republican challenger, Michael Henry.
Henry has told The Post that James “spent weeks in hiding” because “she probably feared that somehow the sexual harassment scandal she worked so hard to cover up would come to light.”
James also said in her comments Wednesday that Khan’s accusers “were not part of our office.”
Khan’s lawyer, Fran Hoffinger, said, “We deny allegations of wrongdoing and we are not litigating this in the press.”
In 2017, The Post exclusively reported that a former employee of the city public advocate’s office had accused Khan of drugging and sexually assaulting her during a December 2014 holiday party at a Lower Manhattan bar. At the time, James was the public advocate and Khan was her chief of staff. James’ then-spokesperson called the allegations by Angel DuBose “an outright lie” and said they were investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which declined to prosecute, and the Department of Investigation, which “reviewed and closed this matter.” The Post removed the article from its website because it learned DuBose had not actually identified Khan as the person who drugged and assaulted her, and said she had no memory of who the attacker was. Through a nephew, DuBose declined to discuss the matter, as did the lawyer who represented her at the time.The city Law Department said Wednesday that details of DuBose’s claim against the city and the Public Advocate’s Office were “confidential.”
In a prepared statement, James said, “First and foremost, I thank the women who came forward, and I want to assure them that they were heard and that I believe them.”
“My office treated this matter as aggressively as every other matter that has come before our office,” she added.
