New York Attorney General Letitia James’s Chief of Staff Resigns Following Sexual Harassment Investigation

 

New York Attorney General Letitia James’s chief of staff has resigned following an investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed at least two women.

The disgraced chief of staff, Ibrahim Khan, had worked for James for nearly a decade.

One of the women accused Khan of “inappropriate touching and unwanted kissing,” according to a report from the New York Times.

After the allegations were made, James hired an independent law firm to investigate. On Friday, according to the report, at least one of the women was told that her claims about unwanted touching and kissing had been substantiated. 

“The accusations against Mr. Khan, who began working for Ms. James as spokesman for her campaign for New York City public advocate in 2013 and then, after she took office, as her chief of staff, were particularly sensitive for Ms. James, who oversaw a 2021 sexual harassment inquiry of New York’s governor at the time, Andrew M. Cuomo,” the Times report noted. “When investigators hired by Ms. James’s office determined that Mr. Cuomo had sexually harassed multiple women over a seven-year period, Ms. James spoke out forcefully against him.”

At the time, James had said that “no man — no matter how powerful — can be allowed to harass women.” Ultimately, Cuomo resigned.

Khan issued a statement claiming that he had been planning to leave the office anyways at the end of the year and claimed that he was not found to have engaged in any wrongdoing.

“I’ve been slated to leave the office for the private sector at the end of this year,” he said in a statement obtained by the Times. “This is unrelated to an investigation which, nevertheless, found no official workplace misconduct,” adding he “is proud of all we have achieved over these past four years in serving New Yorkers.”

The Times was not able to confirm his claim that “no official workplace misconduct” took place.

“The office of attorney general has protocols in place to thoroughly investigate any allegation of misconduct,” said a spokeswoman for James. “The office takes these matters with the utmost seriousness and this situation is no different. An independent, impartial investigation was conducted, and the employee has since resigned.”

The Times report added that “allegations of sexual impropriety by Mr. Khan have surfaced publicly before. In 2017, when Ms. James was the city’s public advocate and he was her chief of staff, The New York Post reported that a former employee of the office had accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting her at a holiday party.”

However, the article on the Post’s website has since been removed.