New York state attorney-general Eric Schneiderman said on Monday in response to an article in the New Yorker magazine in which four women were quoted as saying he physically abused them that he has "not assaulted anyone," and Governor Andrew Cuomo later called for him to resign and said he would begin an investigation.

“In the privacy of intimate relationships, I have engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity," Schneiderman said in a statement issued by public relations firm Stu Loeser & Co.

"I have not assaulted anyone. I have never engaged in non-consensual sex, which is a line I would not cross."

Schneiderman's office referred calls for comment to Loeser's office.

In the article published late on Monday, the New Yorker reported that four women who said they had had romantic relationships or encounters with Schneiderman said they had been "subjected to nonconsensual physical violence."

Reuters has not independently confirmed the accusations.

- Reuters