NEW YORK -- New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has risen to prominence as an antagonist of President Donald Trump's administration and a defender of women's rights, announced his resignation Monday after four women accused him of physically assaulting them in an article published by The New Yorker.
Schneiderman, who had been running for re-election, said he contested the women's accounts, but "while these allegations are unrelated to my professional conduct or the operations of the office, they will effectively prevent me from leading the office's work at this critical time." He said he would resign at the close of business today.
Two of the women, Michelle Manning Barish and Tanya Selvaratnam, who spoke on the record to the magazine, said they had been choked and hit repeatedly by Schneiderman. Neither woman filed any police complaints, but both said they sought out medical attention and confided in people close to them about the abuse.
A third woman who also was involved with him told her story to the other two women, but said she was too frightened to come forward. A fourth woman, who said Schneiderman slapped her when she rebuffed him, also asked to remain unidentified. The New Yorker said it vetted the third woman's allegations and saw a photo of what the fourth woman said was her injury.
All the women in the article, who had been in relationships with Schneiderman, said the violence was not consensual.
Schneiderman denied abusing the women, saying in a statement: "In the privacy of intimate relationships, I have engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity. I have not assaulted anyone. I have never engaged in nonconsensual sex, which is a line I would not cross."
Debra Katz, a lawyer for Manning Barish, said that it was Schneiderman's "fantasy and his fantasy alone that the behavior was welcome."
Schneiderman, she said, "has made a career railing against this type of abuse. Yet apparently he intends to revictimize these courageous women who have come forward by pulling out that age-old sexist trope that they wanted it."
Within hours after the allegations were made public, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who like Schneiderman is a Democrat, called for him to step down.
"My personal opinion is that, given the damning pattern of facts and corroboration laid out in the article, I do not believe it is possible for Eric Schneiderman to continue to serve as attorney general," Cuomo said.
He said, "No one is above the law, including New York's top legal officer. I will be asking an appropriate New York District Attorney(s) to commence an immediate investigation, and proceed as the facts merits."
Schneiderman had been previously outspoken about women's issues, announcing, for instance, a lawsuit against the company once run by former filmmaker Harvey Weinstein, who was accused of decades of sexual misconduct. "We have never seen anything as despicable as what we've seen right here," Schneiderman said then.
Since 2017, Schneiderman had also raised his profile nationally by taking on Trump's agenda repeatedly in the courts. He was pushing to change state law so that his office could prosecute Trump's aides even if the president pardoned them.
Manning Barish, in The New Yorker account, described being slapped by Schneiderman after they had both been drinking; she and Selvaratnam said several of the attacks occurred after alcohol had been consumed.
"It was horrendous," she said. "It just came out of nowhere. My ear was ringing. I lost my balance and fell backward onto the bed. I sprang up, but at this point there was very little room between the bed and him. I got up to try to shove him back, or take a swing, and he pushed me back down. He then used his body weight to hold me down, and he began to choke me. The choking was very hard. It was really bad. I kicked. In every fiber, I felt I was being beaten by a man."
Manning Barish said she was involved with Schneiderman from mid-2013 through the end of 2014; Selvaratnam said she was involved with him from the summer of 2016 until fall 2017.
Selvaratnam, who was born in Sri Lanka, said Schneiderman started calling her his "brown slave" and made her say that she was "his property."
The women accusing him said seeing him speak out on sexual misconduct issues was part of the impetus in them coming forward.
"This is a man who has staked his entire career, his personal narrative, on being a champion for women publicly," Selvaratnam said. "But he abuses them privately. He needs to be called out."
Information for this article was contributed by Danny Hakim and Vivian Wang of The New York Times; and by Deepti Hajela of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/08/2018