A former aide to New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday filed a lawsuit accusing her longtime top aide of sexual assault—and James of protecting him both during and after an investigation into the claim earlier this year. Sofia Quintanar, a 33-year-old who served as deputy press secretary in James’ office, alleges in a complaint obtained by The Daily Beast that in November 2021, then-chief of staff Ibrahim Khan “forcibly kissed” her several times outside a Brooklyn fundraising event, ignoring her protestations. An unidentified political contact who’d been at the event later told her “that it was an ‘open secret’ that Khan was ‘sketchy.’” Quintanar claims after she approached James’ campaign manager three months ago, the attorney general’s office slow-walked an internal investigation into the matter until Khan could quietly resign, “making it appear as if Khan was leaving his post naturally before the start of … James’ next term in office.” Last Wednesday Quintanar told The New York Times, “I find it just appalling to see how the office handled this publicly.” In a statement released the same day, James said that she believed the women, and that her team had “treated this matter as aggressively as every other matter that has come before our office.”