(Image source from: CBS News)

New York:
Governor of New York, Andrew Mark Cuomo asked for a special prosecuting officer to be appointed to investigate allegations that Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman facing of assaulting four women he was romantically involved with over several years, taking the inquiry away from the Manhattan district attorney.

Hours after the report on Monday that they had accused Mr. Schneiderman of assault, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., announced that his office would look into the allegations, raising the possibility of criminal charges that would accompany Mr. Schneiderman’s political fall from grace.

But by early Tuesday, Mr. Cuomo had raised questions about Mr. Vance’s ability to be impartial, saying he wanted “an investigation by an independent district attorney” who did not have a whiff of conflict and by nightfall, he had written a letter ordering the Nassau County district attorney, Madeline Singas, be appointed to investigate any and all matters related to Mr. Schneiderman’s mistreatment of his former romantic partners.

Mr. Vance fired back at the governor saying in a letter that he objected to the decision to appoint a special prosecutor. “Put simply, no prosecutors are better equipped to investigate and pursue such cases in Manhattan than those in my office,” he wrote.

He further said, governor himself had created the conflict of interest when he ordered the attorney general to conduct the review of the Weinstein case, a move Mr. Vance called an “unwarranted intrusion by an elected executive into a charging decision by an independent prosecutor.”

Mr. Schneiderman, who resigned soon after the story broke, retained Isabelle Kirshner, a well-known defense attorney with the firm Clayman & Rosenberg, to represent him.

If the allegations are proven true, he could face a throng of criminal charges, including assault, harassment, forcible touching, strangulation and related offenses, former prosecutors and legal experts said. Prosecutors will also have to determine whether Mr. Schneiderman used government resources to cover up his actions or whether the threats he made were under color of law. Still, legal experts say prosecutors will face several legal and political hurdles in investigating the case.

By Sowmya Sangam