New York, January 17: New York Governor David Paterson was spotted nuzzling, kissing and cooing like a smitten schoolboy with a pretty young woman – not his wife – in a New Jersey steakhouse on Saturday afternoon, it has been reported.
“I saw him kissing her neck,” said Sharon Farrell, a lawyer sitting two tables away from Mr Paterson and his mystery gal pal at the River Palm Terrace in Edgewater.
“He was right on her neck, nudging, like back and forth.”
Mr Paterson’s spokeswoman later said the Governor’s dining partner was just a friend, and that he never got romantic with her.
The Governor himself told the New York Post that the woman “works with me”.
But Ms Farrell said, “No way it was a business meeting . . . It was very intimate.”
Ms Farrell’s friend and dining companion, special-ed teacher Carol McGuirt, said Mr Paterson and his lady friend, a leggy Latina in her 20s, were ensconced in a cozy, curved banquette for several hours during lunch, and clearly were enjoying each other’s company.
“A young, young girl was with him,” Ms McGuirt said of Mr Paterson, who was stylishly accoutered in a shiny purple dress shirt and slacks.
“I would say they looked like a young couple who are very into each other . . . and enjoying themselves.”
On the day Mr Paterson was sworn in, he confessed he had carried on extramarital affairs in the past, as had his wife, Michelle.
—Agencies