ALBANY — Disgraced Assemblyman Vito Lopez will beat Gov. Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to the punch and resign “no later’’ than 10 a.m. Monday — preventing his all-but-certain expulsion from the Assembly that could have come Monday afternoon, The Post has learned.
Lopez — the one-time Brooklyn Democratic chairman who was found by two reports this week to have sexually harassed several staff members over several years — bitterly told The Post in an exclusive interview that he wanted to resign rather than give Cuomo and Silver the satisfaction of lining up the expulsion vote against him.
“For the sake of my family, for the sake of my close friends and for the sake of my own health, I will resign from the Assembly Monday morning by 10 a.m.,’’ said Lopez, 71, who is suffering from cancer.
“Everything will end Monday.”
“I want to make it clear that this is not an admission of wrongdoing on my part,’’ Lopez continued. “I have not admitted to wrongdoing, and I do feel I was denied an opportunity for due process in the investigations that took place.”
LOPEZ EMBOLDENED AFTER ASSEMBLY FAILED TO ACT ON SEX-HARASS CLAIM: FEMALE STAFFER
Lopez also said he might soon end his campaign for the City Council, especially if a battery of cancer-related health tests he is to undergo this month aren’t encouraging.
His disclosure to The Post came just hours after he issued a statement saying he would resign from the Assembly on June 20 — the end of the legislative session.
But his insistence on remaining in office despite the findings against him set off an escalating round of demands by Cuomo, Silver and others that he either resign immediately or face certain expulsion from the Assembly as soon as Monday afternoon.
Lopez said he concluded that his expulsion was inevitable, saying wistfully, “Why should I try and hold out for another 3 1/2 weeks?”
Assembly insiders said Silver, with Cuomo’s active encouragement, was aggressively insisting on Lopez’s quick expulsion to deflect attention away from his own efforts — outlined in the two reports — to suppress knowledge of Lopez’s alleged sexual harassment of staff members.
Silver late yesterday released the text of a resolution to be voted on Monday directing “an immediate review’’ of Lopez’s action by the Assembly’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Guidance, a major step toward expulsion.
Lopez contended that his lawyer was repeatedly denied the ability to examine evidence presented during the two investigations. He claimed the pairing of the potentially criminal investigation by Staten Island DA Dan Donovan and the civil investigation by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics had led to his being advised by his lawyers not to fully cooperate.
“I was a member of the Assembly for 29 years, I dedicated my life to it. I would have expected better treatment and the ability to have my issues heard.
“People should be allowed to have due process of law, and I wasn’t allow to,’’ Lopez said.