Shawn Coyle. Yes it probably can handle the lateral c. of g., because around 1970 in a former life on the dark continent I did something vaguely similar, only deliberately pre-planned by my crewman. We ended up lifting a dead 16 ft Nile crocodile tied to the aircraft step on the crewman's side.
I was an incredibly naíf and stupid 20 year old who got talked into it by the old hand crewman in his forties. He wanted to skin the beast, but the game reserve officials got wind of it and we nearly ended up on a criminal charge because they thought we'd shot the animal.
When I pulled up into the hover with the croc hanging below, the cyclic was almost to the RH lateral limit. During the half hour flight back to base at around 40 knots, the croc started to swing and take the aircraft beyond control authority. I twice entered a banked left turn to stop the swinging and regain authority.
On arriving back at base I realised that the confined LZ between trees would never allow an OGE vertical landing without overtorqueing. The crewman got annoyed with me and used his knife to cut the rope around the step from which the croc was swinging.
The stink of the dead croc and the stink from my boss were things you'd never want to experience. I won't give any more specific details, to protect the innocent and preserve my embarrasment.