Victims offer harrowing testimony at sexual harassment hearing
Originally published in
Times Union
Sen. Jim Skoufis, a freshman Democrat from the Hudson Valley, asked JCOPE investigator Emily Logue why the agency had only investigated 43 incidents of harassment in the Legislature. It had only released findings in three of those cases.
"Clearly, this is a more pervasive issue than the volume than you are handling — what happened?" he said.
Agata acknowledged that more "mindfulness" was needed in JCOPE's handling of victims, and pressed the lawmakers to pass measures that would add a degree of transparency to the ethics panel's notoriously opaque investigations.
It was the first sexual harassment hearing Albany has seen in nearly three decades. Lawmakers engaged with victims for hours, discussing potential legislation that would improve the investigation process, exposing areas for improvement in the state's Human Rights Law, and obstacles to recourse for victims.