Tim Roske / AP Photo
Gov. David Paterson personally directed his press secretary to ask a woman who had accused his close aide of attacking her to say the run-in was nonviolent and contradict her previous accounts to the police in court, The New York Times cites three sources as saying. Paterson also allegedly had a state employee, who was a mutual friend of both the woman and the governor, make contact with the accuser to “finalize an order of protection against the aide” before her court date. The state employee arranged a phone call between the governor and the woman, the sources say. The woman accused the aide, David Johnson, of “choking her, smashing her into a mirrored dresser and preventing her from calling for help,” but failed to appear in court after the phone call for her hearing, and the case was dropped. After the Times reported that Paterson and the State Police had intervened in the domestic-abuse case involving Johnson, Paterson ended his campaign for reelection.