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Assemblyman and City Council candidate Micah Kellner has a hard time taking no for an answer.
A day after it was revealed that a staffer accused him of making inappropriate and sexually suggestive remarks to a young female staffer during online chats, a source said his full-court romantic press also caused problems when he was an intern for Sen. Charles Schumer sometime between 2000-2002.
The source said Kellner was aggressively flirting with Schumer’s office scheduler and causing problems.
“He was giving the scheduler a hard time, making her uncomfortable, telling her how much he liked her, asking her out,” the source told The Post.
“He was hitting on her. It made her uncomfortable.”
The source said Kellner was told to stop, but didn’t, and was moved to a campaign position so the two wouldn’t be in the same office.
“She mattered in the office,” the source said. “He didn’t.”
Kellner’s camp denied he ever worked for Schumer’s congressional office and said that he only worked for the campaign, first as an unpaid intern then as a part-time deputy finance director.
He denied ever hitting on any co-workers.
“From fall 2000 to fall 2001, Assembly Member Micah Kellner was an intern and was then promoted to a position as a paid staff member of Senator Schumer’s campaign office. This story is preposterous and makes no sense,” said Kellner spokesman Brice Peyre.
The report comes a day after Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver fired a top counsel because he failed to take action against Kellner in 2009 when Kellner made unwanted advances to a female staffer.
Bill Collins, the lawyer who negotiated a secret settlement with accusers of ex-Assemblyman Vito Lopez, was let go after 15 years with the Assembly for taking no action when he learned of the complaint.
Silver said he became aware of the accusation against Kellner only last month, and referred the matter to the Assembly Ethics Committee. Assemblywoman Debra Glick (D-Manhattan), a longtime Silver ally, was the person who told Silver about the complaint. She didn’t return calls for comment.
Kellner, 34, the only openly bisexual member of the Assembly, apologized for his behavior in 2009, saying he was single, but regrets sending the flirtatious messages. Ironically, he has been one of the most vocal critics of Silver’s handling of sex-harassment claims.
Kellner was back out campaigning yesterday with his wife, Marie Ternes, a public-relations pro — who, coincidently, used to be the chief of staff for Anthony Weiner.