IN DEVELOPMENT … The story will be updated as new information can be verified. Updated 3 times

NEW YORK – A television veteran has said CNN presenter Chris Cuomo sexually harassed her by squeezing her buttocks at a party in 2005.

Shelley Ross said in an opinion piece in the New York Times on Friday that Chris Cuomo, who previously reported to her to ABC News, greeted her with a bear hug “while lowering a hand to firmly grip and squeeze the cheek of my butt “while she was at a party with her husband.

Ross said Cuomo told her, “I can do this now that you’re no longer my boss,” and she replied, “No, you can’t,” pushing him away while stepping back to reveal her husband, who had witnessed the episode.

Cuomo sent an email shortly after, saying he was “ashamed”. He mentioned a celebrity who had been arrested for similar behavior recently and apologized to Ross and her husband.

Asked to comment, Cuomo told The Times, “As Shelley acknowledges, our interaction was not of a sexual nature. This happened 16 years ago in a public setting while she was a senior executive at ABC. I apologized to her at that point, and I really meant it.

Cuomo, host of ‘Cuomo Prime Time’, has been criticized for his role in advising his brother, Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as governor of New York last month over harassment allegations sex on the part of several women.

Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, denied touching any of the women inappropriately.

Chris Cuomo told CNN viewers last month that he advised his brother to be contrite. “I was there to listen and offer my perspective,” Cuomo said. “And my advice to my brother was simple and consistent: take responsibility for what you’ve done, tell people what you’re going to try to do to be better, be sorry. Finally, accept that no matter what you want, what matters is how your actions and words are perceived.

Ross said in his essay in The Times that Chris Cuomo should have been ashamed of his conduct with her: “But my question today is the same as it was then: was he ashamed of what he did? , or was he embarrassed because my husband saw this? “

She said she viewed the apology as “an attempt to provide legal and moral cover to escape liability.”

Asked about Ross’s essay on Friday, a CNN spokesperson referred to Cuomo’s statement to The Times.

Ross has previously written that he was sexually harassed by Roger Ailes, who was ousted from Fox News Channel over harassment complaints and died in 2017.

Recounting the 1981 encounter in his New York Times article, Ross said Ailes apologized to him for insisting on a “sex alliance” as a condition of a pending job offer on the “Tomorrow” show. “from NBC.

Ross said she accepted Ailes’ apology, naively believing she could “help reform the workplace, one predator at a time.”

Ross said she was not asking for Chris Cuomo to be fired from CNN, but would like to see him “journalistically repent: agree on air to study the impact of sexism, harassment and gender bias on the workplace, including his, then report on it. “

She suggested a series of town halls called “The Continuing Education of Chris Cuomo”.

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This story has been corrected to show that the program hosted by Cuomo is called “Cuomo Prime Time” and not “CNN Prime Time”.