NEW YORK — Despite calls from leading Democrats to step aside, Gov. David Paterson said Thursday he won’t drop his election bid amid a growing scandal surrounding accusations of domestic violence against a key aide.
The embattled governor said he will speak to key New York Democrats about his political future, but for now he’s continuing his campaign to gain by election the seat he rose to in 2008, when former Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a prostitution scandal.
Paterson also said he will cooperate fully with a state attorney general’s investigation into contact that his administration had with a woman who accused aide David Johnson, her boyfriend at the time, of domestic violence. No criminal charges were brought after the 2009 incident at the woman’s home, in which Johnson allegedly choked and pushed her.
The New York Times reported Wednesday on court papers showing a phone call between state police and the woman. Paterson’s office acknowledges he talked to the woman but says she placed the call, and a spokesman for the governor denied that anyone tried to keep the woman from pursuing a domestic-violence case.
Paterson’s office has not made Johnson available for comment.
