Lawyer suggests options for Cosby
LOS ANGELES High-profile lawyer Gloria Allred has issued a challenge to Bill Cosby with two options: Either do “what’s right” over multiple allegations of sexual assault and fight them in court. Or put up $100 million US for an informal hearing where the women can prove he has damaged them and a third party can decide whether payment is justified.
Allred, known for her work in civil rights, represents at least three alleged Cosby victims, who were present with the lawyer at a news conference Wednesday in Los Angeles.
Allred says she knows the statute of limitations has run out in many of the cases, but she suggested a legal conference, perhaps held before a retired judge, would be a way for Cosby and his alleged victims “to move on.”
Money does not answer all the issues, Allred said. But it would help compensate alleged victims for medical and therapy costs, as well as provide punitive damages.
Many of his alleged victims have told similar stories, that he slipped them a pill or drink that rendered them unconscious before assaulting them.
One of the three woman Allred represents alleges she was 17 when Cosby assaulted her and when she awoke she saw him clapping, telling her to “wake up for daddy.”
Cosby has denied these and other allegations. They have not been proven in court.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit by a woman who claims Cosby molested her when she was 15 years old has moved allegations of sexual misconduct against the comedian from the court of public opinion back into the courthouse.
Judy Huth’s lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles accuses Cosby of forcing her to perform a sex act on him in a bedroom of the Playboy Mansion around 1974. Huth is the latest woman to accuse the comedian of sex abuse. She is the first one since 2005 to file a lawsuit.
Cosby has been beset for weeks by allegations by more than a dozen women that he drugged and sexually assaulted them in incidents spanning several decades. The comedian and former Cosby Show star has not been criminally charged. Many of the allegations are so old that they are barred by statutes of limitations.
But Huth’s lawsuit contends she became aware within the past three years of the serious effects the abuse has had on her. California law allows victims of sexual abuse when they were minors to bring a claim after adulthood if they discover later in life that they suffered psychological injuries as a result of the abuse.
Cosby has not been criminally charged, but Netflix and NBC have scuttled projects featuring the comedian and several shows on his current comedy tour have also been cancelled.
His lawyer Martin Singer did not return an email message seeking comment Tuesday night.
Huth’s lawsuit is the first time a woman has gone public claiming Cosby abused her when she was underage. A second woman had told Pittsburgh TV station KDKA last month that Cosby drugged her to the point of unconsciousness in the 1980s when she was 15.
Cosby resigned Monday from the Temple University board of trustees. He had been the school’s public face, appearing in advertisements, fundraising campaigns and delivering commencement speeches. Last week, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where Cosby had earned a doctorate in education, dropped Cosby from its fundraising drive.