Bill Cosby Sued By Nine More Women Over Alleged Assaults
Nine more women are alleging Bill Cosby sexually assaulted them and are suing him.
Bill Cosby was once a staple of entertainment as a comedian, actor, and one of the most famous faces in the world. However, his reputation was mostly destroyed by dozens of women accusing him of sexual assault, and he was convicted in Pennsylvania in 2018 before getting released from prison less than three years later when the state Supreme Court overturned his conviction. Now, Variety reports that nine more women have come forward and are suing Cosby over alleged sexual assault in the state of Nevada.
At this point, cynics might ask the obvious question: why are these women only now suing Bill Cosby, five years after his earlier conviction on similar charges? The short answer is that the state of Nevada recently changed its laws regarding the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases where adults are involved. Previously, there was a limit of two years, but now that Governor Joe Lombardo eliminated that limitation altogether back in May, it opened the door for these women to sue Bill Cosby over alleged abuses that occurred more than two years ago.
While this is a new lawsuit against Bill Cosby, those who have been closely following his legal drama over the years may recognize some of the names involved. For example, one of the women suing him in Nevada is Janice Dickinson, a model and reality television star. She played a prominent role in Cosby’s original downfall, testifying in 2018 that the famous actor had drugged and raped her back in 1982.
Another famous woman at the center of this new Bill Cosby lawsuit is Lili Bernard, who was once a guest star on The Cosby Show. In 2015, she began making allegations against Bill Cosby before suing him in 2017, and she also joined four other women in a New York-based lawsuit against Cosby last December. Along the way, she became an icon of the #MeToo movement, inspiring other women to come forward with allegations against Cosby and other powerful media figures such as Harvey Weinstein.
As for Bill Cosby, he denies these new allegations, just as he has consistently denied the allegations of the other women (there are more than 60 now) that have come forward. The 85-year-old actor’s lawyer Andrew Wyatt responded by implying that the women making these allegations are opportunistic and driven by greed, and he surprisingly made it sound as if Cosby, much like Johnny Depp before him, is ready for his day in court. In his words, “we will not continue to allow these women to parade various accounts of an alleged allegation against Mr. Cosby anymore without vetting them in the court of public opinion and inside of the courtroom.”
Taken at face value, these statements make it sound like Cosby and his legal team are hoping to clear the actor’s name once and for all. However, the lawyer also mentioned the court of public opinion, and we can’t help but think that is one court where Cosby will not prevail for the simple reason that these allegations have haunted the actor since 1965. Now that women keep coming forward with new allegations and lawsuits, Cosby (who had been planning a kind of comeback comedy tour) may have a legacy that is forever tarnished, even in the eyes of his biggest fans.
