Cuomo’s Top Aide, Melissa DeRosa, Resigns as He Fights to Survive

The governor’s strategist helped lead efforts to retaliate against one of the women who accused him of sexual harassment, the attorney general’s report found.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, said late Sunday that she had resigned, a move that came as the governor fought for political survival after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded he had sexually harassed nearly a dozen women. Her resignation meant that Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, lost one of his most loyal aides and trusted strategists while facing an imminent threat of impeachment in the State Legislature and calls to step down from a constellation of top officials in his party, including President Biden and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Ms. DeRosa stood by the governor’s side for years even as his inner circle shrank in size and many of the top staffers who had helped first elect him in 2010 left the administration.