COHOES — Mayor Shawn M. Morse on Monday said he will not resign his office, and insisted that allegations he had physically abused women — including his wife and younger daughter — are untrue.

Morse, 51, who has in recent days faced increasing pressure to step down from more than a dozen fellow elected leaders, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, cast his estranged wife, Brenda, as a serial liar with a substance abuse problem.

"If I’m going to save my family, my kids, and even my wife’s life, I guess I have no choice but to stand here in public," Morse said during an afternoon press conference at City Hall. "The reality is Brenda is very troubled, she’s on a downward spiral and I’ll leave it at that."

Morse played a recording on his mobile phone of Brenda Morse, clearly emotional, yelling at him during what he said was a recent argument outside City Hall. He claimed, without offering proof, that she had recently flunked a Family Court drug test. He also said she had violated an order of protection by allowing their 15-year-old daughter to be around a teenage boy she was prohibited from contacting.

But Morse did not explain why their younger daughter had told Child Protective Services investigators last year that he had choked her, pulled her hair, knocked her down and punched her during separate incidents. He said the allegations were "unfounded," and offered to provide documentation from Child Protective Services showing that was the outcome. His attorney, Joseph Ahearn, did not respond to a request to provide the documents.

"I will tell you that I have never touched a woman, I've never touched my wife, I've never touched my daughters and I've never touched my son," Morse said. "I will take that to the grave with me, because it's never happened."

His extraordinary press conference took place a day after Cuomo called for Morse to step down and said that State Police have reopened their investigation of abuse allegations against the mayor following a story published in Sunday's Times Union.

The story detailed the daughter's allegations to CPS investigators and also cited an affidavit from Brenda Morse, prepared in connection with their divorce proceeding, in which she said her husband had physically abused her throughout their 19-year marriage.

Morse also denied allegations by Colleen Keller, the mother of their son, who went public last year and said that Morse had repeatedly broken into her residence and abused her in the 1990s, including an incident in which he grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the ground. A former Cohoes police officer, Gary Ethier, had confirmed responding to Keller's residence when she called police for help.

Morse assailed state Assemblyman John McDonald, a former Cohoes mayor, for confirming that he had witnessed an incident in the late 1980s when Morse allegedly dragged a woman he was dating out of McDonald's family pharmacy by her hair.

Morse called McDonald "a liar" and seized on the fact the lawmaker later clarified that although he witnessed the incident, someone told him who Morse was because they didn't know one another at the time. But McDonald has never backtracked from the fact he said he saw the incident, and that the woman and her family did not want the police called.

The Albany County district attorney's office has been overseeing an investigation of Morse since last November, when Brenda Morse called 911 and told a dispatcher that her husband had grabbed her by the throat and thrown her to the ground during an argument.

Shawn Morse initially said that his wife accidentally dialed 911 and he claimed that she never told a dispatcher he had choked her. He also initially denied having a scratch under his left eye a day after the incident, but now acknowledges that she scratched him. Brenda Morse has said she scratched at his face when he grabbed her throat.

Colonie police opened a new investigation of Morse after his wife filed a complaint last week alleging that he assaulted her — bruising her arm and shoulder and spitting in her face — when they met at a Wolf Road restaurant on Thursday morning to discuss the terms of their separation.

Morse implied his wife had concocted the allegation about their Wolf Road meeting in response to a State Police statement issued last week — after TimesUnion.com published Brenda Morse's 911 call — saying their 10-month investigation had not produced enough evidence to charge him with the allegations made by his wife in the November 911 call. However, Brenda Morse had made the allegations a day before her husband claimed during the news conference.

Morse said he was "cleared" of the allegations made last November, but the State Police later reopened their investigation and expanded it to examine the accusations made by the couple's younger daughter.

Cohoes police, who were aware of the Child Protective Services investigation, have not responded to requests for comment on whether they took any action. Morse, who as mayor is the public safety commissioner overseeing the department, said he's unaware if Cohoes police were aware of his daughter's abuse allegations, or did anything about it if they had been.

The Child Protective Services reports, filed by investigators in Rensselaer County because of Shawn Morse's political ties in Albany County, detail allegations that he regularly used physical violence against his younger daughter, now 16. It's unclear why CPS investigators became involved, but during at least one interview Morse's daughter was accompanied by her math teacher from Cohoes High School. That interview took place March 24, 2017, at the Cohoes Public Library, according to the report.

During the interview, a CPS investigator wrote in a report that the daughter — whose name is being withheld by the Times Union — recounted how a few days earlier her father allegedly attacked her unprovoked at the family's home following a heated argument he had with his wife in the middle of the night, the document states.

"(Child) said she pulled covers over her head and (father) was pulling the covers off and punching her in the side of the head," the report states. "(Child) said she was fighting and kicking (father). ... (Child) said she got up to go to her room and put clothes on to leave. (Child) said (father) followed and was standing kind of on the side of her and he grabbed her with both hands and started to choke her. (Child) said (father) was saying 'I'll kill you right now ... who are you talking to me like that.' (Child) said (father) was holding her throat for about 5 seconds and said he saw that she couldn't breathe and started crying so he let go."

The press conference took place about two hours after more than a dozen Democratic political leaders from Albany County, including members of the state Legislature, issued a statement Monday calling for Morse to resign in the wake of additional allegations of domestic abuse.

Those signing the statement included County Executive Daniel P. McCoy; county Democratic Chairman Jack Flynn; county Legislators Joanne Cunningham, Raymond Joyce, Allison McLean Lane and Lynne Lekakis; state Sen. Neil Breslin; Assembly members John McDonald and Patricia Fahy; Bethlehem Supervisor David VanLuvenand; and six Albany Common Council members.

"Given the troubling allegations of domestic violence and child abuse made against Mayor Shawn Morse, we are in agreement that he cannot continue to serve as mayor of the city of Cohoes and accordingly we join with Gov. Cuomo in calling for his immediate resignation," read the statement from the officials in Albany County.

Morse brushed off Cuomo's request that he resign and called him "the most corrupt governor in America."

The day's event ended with an emergency meeting of the Cohoes Common Council, which convened in the same room in which Morse held his news conference a few hours earlier. The mayor attended and repeated many of the arguments he had made earlier.

"This is a real tough spot that our mayor is in," council member Christopher Briggs said. "This thing has grown, and grown and grown to be some monster that is more than what it started off to be. What I'm saying is, it's not about Shawn and his personal problems. It's about Shawn the mayor, not Shawn the individual."

About 100 people packed into the often tense meeting. About a dozen people spoke during the public comment portion, most speaking in favor of Morse as a "good honest man" and a "great mayor."

In the end, the meeting adjourned without any formal decision or vote on the matter. Briggs said the meeting served as a conversation between council members and the public.

"I'm struggling in my mind with what do you do?" Briggs said during the meeting. " ... We don't have the ability to remove him. It's Shawn's decision. He is going to have to be the one to determine whether it's about him, (or) if it's about the city."