ALBANY — The U.S. Department of Justice has found that former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sexually harassed 13 women over eight years while he was the chief executive of New York, according to a settlement with the current governor’s office announced on Friday.

The DOJ has been investigating the governor’s office under Cuomo as part of a civil rights investigation.

It started when more than a dozen women came forward in 2021, accusing Cuomo of sexual harassment, including both physical advances and inappropriate, sexually charged comments.

Cuomo resigned from the Governor’s office in August 2021, facing the possibility of an impeachment trial in the state legislature that could have permanently kept him from seeking public office.

According to an agreement announced Friday between the DOJ and the office under Gov. Kathy Hochul, Cuomo’s office violated federal Title VII rules on gender discrimination and retaliation in public institutions, during his term from 2013 to 2021.

The report found that Cuomo subjected at least 13 female state employees to a “sexually hostile” working environment. The report said some of these employees were Executive Chamber staff, under his direct supervision, while others were further afield.

Cuomo has been accused of harassment by women who do not work for the state as well, and those accusations were not investigated by the DOJ.

“Governor Cuomo repeatedly subjected these female employees to unwelcome, non-consensual sexual contact, ogling, unwelcome sexual comments, gender-based nicknames, comments on their physical appearances, and/or preferential treatment based on their physical appearances,” the report reads.

The DOJ settlement also finds that officials in leadership around Cuomo in the Executive Chamber were aware of Cuomo’s actions but did not attempt to address them systematically, despite repeated allegations. The DOJ report says staffers under Cuomo failed to follow Equal Employment Opportunity policies on reporting those allegations to an investigative body, and moved to protect Cuomo from further accusations or damaging results.

The DOJ said four women were specifically retaliated against by senior Cuomo staffers.

“The conduct in the Executive Chamber under the former governor, the state’s most powerful elected official, was especially egregious because of the stark power differential involved and the victims’ lack of avenues to report and redress harassment,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who runs the Civil Rights division of the DOJ.

Rita Glavin, an attorney for Cuomo who has handled much of his sexual harassment legal proceedings, said in a statement Friday that the former governor had not been contacted by the DOJ for its investigation, and denied the allegations of misconduct.

“The DOJ ‘investigation’ was entirely based on the NYS Attorney General’s deeply flawed, inaccurate, biased and misleading report,” she said. “At no point did DOJ even contact Governor Cuomo about these matters. This is nothing more than a political settlement with no investigation.”

Rich Azzopardi, a longtime spokesperson for Cuomo, took a shot at New York’s leading Democrats, including Sen. Charles E. Schumer, saying the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District who authorized the settlement for the DOJ was “handpicked” by the Senate majority leader, and accused the attorney of having inappropriate connections to the law firm that worked on the state attorney general’s report on Cuomo.

“This isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, and it’s ironic that Gov. Hochul, who herself is being accused of retaliation, signed off on it,” Azzopardi said.

Hochul was accused of retaliation in one complaint against Cuomo, allegedly demoting a former executive assistant to Cuomo after she complained of harassment. Hochul has denied the allegation, and said the lieutenant governor, as she was at the time, doesn’t make staffing decisions for the governor.

In the settlement struck between the DOJ and the executive chamber now, much of what Hochul has done to address the working culture of her office has been formalized, but the DOJ also called on the Hochul administration to make further changes to its rules and operations.

According to the settlement report, Hochul fired employees engaged in the Cuomo incidents or retaliated against the people who reported issues with his conduct.

She made it clear that sexual harassment, discrimination or retaliation are not tolerated, and created a Human Resources Department for the Executive Chamber, the first time the governor’s office in New York has used such a formal employee management structure.

The new Executive HR department handles interpersonal issues among staff, training and compliance as related to sexual harassment or discrimination regulations.

Hochul established a workplace sexual harassment hotline through the state Division of Human Rights to allow for anonymous reporting and legal advice, and has generally stepped up the Executive Chamber’s workplace sexual harassment and discrimination training and monitoring process.

The DOJ settlement report says Hochul’s office should take those steps and go further, expanding the human resources department to hire two new staffers focused on employee relationship issues and employee training.

The settlement calls for Hochul’s office to transfer employee complaint handling to the state Office of Employee Relations, the human resources office for the general state workforce. Currently, the investigation of employee complaints is undertaken by a hired law firm.

When it comes to senior officials, the Executive Chamber must establish a separate reporting process that goes outside of the Office of Employee Relations, which will likely include an outside law firm. Complaints alleging misconduct committed by the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary to the governor, counsel to the governor, director of state operations, chief of staff, director of human resources, chief administrative officer and director of communications will all be routed through the outside counsel.

Policies like training programs for leadership, anti-retaliation measures, and more will be undertaken, and the governor’s office will produce a series of reports on the effectiveness of these reforms in nine months.

In a statement, Hochul said she was proud to have reached a settlement with the DOJ, and said she’s worked to make the Executive Chamber a more equitable, safe workplace since becoming governor in August 2021.

“The moment I took office, I knew I needed to root out the culture of harassment that had previously plagued the Executive Chamber, and implement strong policies to promote a safe workplace for all employees, and took immediate action to do so,” she said.