Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple vowed Saturday that his office would conduct a “very comprehensive investigation” into a criminal complaint filed this week against New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) by a woman who alleged the governor had engaged in illegal sexual conduct while in Albany.

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       Apple said his investigators would not be rushed or swayed either way by the high-profile nature of the case. Cuomo is facing a growing number of calls to resign, including from President Biden and other top Democrats, after numerous women have accused him of sexual harassment and retaliation.

       “We treat victims the same. We investigate the same. This one has more eyes on it,” Apple told reporters at a news conference Saturday afternoon. “I’m not going to rush it because of who [Cuomo] is and I’m not going to delay it because of who he is.”

       The criminal complaint was filed with Apple’s office Thursday afternoon, he said, and he met with the woman and her attorney, Brian Premo, for about an hour the next day to discuss the process ahead.

       Apple declined several times to discuss any details or release documents about the complaint, other than to say that the alleged conduct was “sexual in nature” and that it took place in Albany, within his jurisdiction.

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       Apple also said it was “premature” to say whether the complaint would lead to Cuomo’s arrest and that he was not concerned about pressure or retaliation from the governor.

       “We are in the infant stages of this investigation,” he said. “We have a lot of fact-finding to do. We have a lot of interviews to conduct.”

       After its own lengthy investigation, the office of New York state Attorney General Letitia James (D) on Tuesday released a 165-page report that concluded Cuomo had sexually harassed numerous women, including members of his own staff, “engaging in unwelcome and nonconsensual touching, as well as making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women.”

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       On Saturday, Apple said his office has reached out to James’s office to request investigative material, and that he hoped to receive it this coming week. At least four district attorney’s offices in New York state have sought information from James’s office and said they will investigate Cuomo’s conduct.

       New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Aug. 3 that Cuomo had created a hostile work environment in violation of state and federal law. (New York State Office of the Attorney General)

       In a statement Saturday, James’s spokesman, Fabien Levy, said the attorney general’s office would “cooperate fully with the Albany sheriff and turn over all evidence related to this complainant.” He also confirmed that the complainant who was the subject of Apple’s news conference Saturday was a woman identified in James’s report as “Executive Assistant #1,” who accused Cuomo of multiple instances of physical and verbal sexual harassment, including groping her breast in the governor’s mansion in Albany. Cuomo has denied the allegations.

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       Cuomo has apologized in a general manner for anything he said that may “have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation,” but has denied allegations of sexual harassment. He has also steadfastly refused to step down, even as the New York state Assembly takes steps to begin impeachment proceedings. On Friday, the governor’s legal team cast doubt on James’s investigation by attacking the process as unfair.

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       “The governor deserves to be treated fairly, like anybody else in this country accused of something,” Cuomo’s personal attorney, Rita Glavin, said in a virtual news conference Friday afternoon. “He is 63 years old. He has spent 40 years in public life. And for him to all of a sudden be accused of a sexual assault of an executive assistant that he really doesn’t know doesn’t pass muster.”

       Glavin also questioned the assistant’s account of the breast groping.

       When asked Saturday why the woman had waited months to file a criminal complaint with the Albany County Sheriff’s Office, Apple speculated that the release of James’s report this week “may have empowered her some.”

       Ted Gup in Albany and Josh Dawsey in Washington contributed to this report.