NEW YORK — New York attorney Peter Gleason says two women came to his office four years ago to seek help about then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
Gleason was once a write-in candidate for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office against Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, whose office is now investigating the case.
He said it is now “refreshing” that “people’s allegations of misconduct are finally being taken seriously.”
“I have two women at two separate times come in and complain about Eric Schneiderman, the way he treated women,” Gleason told The Daily Caller Tuesday.
“Neither of these women want to have their identity revealed, but this is going back several years and I’m involved in local downtown Democratic politics and Albany all the way to the executive branch was fully aware of what Mr. Schneiderman is doing,” he continued.
Gleason also said that it was “not beyond the pale” that President Trump knew the rumors about the former New York attorney general.
Schneiderman resigned from his post as New York’s attorney general Monday night just three hours after a New Yorker Magazine article surfaced with allegations from four women that he physically abused them during intimate relationships.
Two of the women went on record, but neither filed a police report. The charges of abuse included slapping and strangulation. Gleason says his clients gave similar accounts about Schneiderman, but did not file police reports because they believed they would have ended up on the “shorter end of the stick.”
“You have to remember [2014] was the time before the ‘me too’ movement really picked up steam and traction. So, the decision whether or not to move forward was made by the client and there’s a variety of factors including the damage to reputation when somebody makes an allegation which will fall on deaf ears,” he said.
The New York lawyer said he lost touch with one of the women who came to him for help. The other declined to step forward with her story after he reached out to her again recently.
“The silver lining to that is, there’s apparently a number of women who are now coming forward against Mr. Schneiderman and we’ll see what the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance does about this,” he said.