Bill Cosby is being sued by five women including two former actresses who appeared on The Cosby Show for sexual assault and battery under the new lookback law in New York, reports ABC News.
Actresses Lili Bernard and Eden Tirl along with Jewel Gittens, Jennifer Thompson, and Cindra Ladd filed a 34-page lawsuit naming Cosby, NBCUniversal Media, Kaufman Astoria Studios, and The Carsey-Werner Company as co-defendants.
The suit accuses the disgraced comedian of “assault, battery, infliction of emotional distress and false imprisonment and accuses the media companies of negligence.”
“Each plaintiff was sexually assaulted and battered by defendant Bill Cosby in the same or similar manner when he used his power, fame, and prestige, including the power, fame, and prestige given to him by [the] defendants … to misuse his enormous power in such a nefarious, horrific way,” read the suit. “Now, these five Plaintiffs have come forward to stand up for themselves and others after they were sexually abused and assaulted by Bill Cosby.”
According to the lawsuit, Cosby is accused of drugging and raping Bernard, who played Mrs. Minifield, on The Cosby Show in New Jersey, in Nevada and at his Manhattan home from 1990- 1991.
Tirl, who played a police officer on one episode of the show, claimed that in 1989 she was inappropriately touched by Cosby without her consent in his dressing room.
Gittens alleges that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her after being invited to his Manhattan home—sometime in 1989 or 1990—to discuss a role on his show.
Thompson claims that in 1988, when she was 18, Cosby made her inappropriately touch him without her consent at his Manhattan home. And, Ladd alleges that Cosby drugged her and raped her in 1969.
Andrew Wyatt, a spokesperson for Cosby described the lawsuit as “frivolous” and vehemently denied the allegations.
"As we have always stated and now America see [sic] that this isn’t about justice for victims of alleged sexual assault but it’s ALL ABOUT MONEY,” he wrote in a statement. “We believe that the courts as well as the court of public opinion will follow the rules of law and relieve Mr. Cosby of these alleged accusations. Mr. Cosby continues to vehemently deny all allegations [sic] waged against him and looks forward to defending himself in court.”
Passed last month, the lawsuit was filed under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which permits adult survivors of sexual abuse “a one-year window to sue their abusers even if the statute of limitations on their claims has expired.”
Over the years, at least 50 women have alleged that Cosby sexually assaulted them. He was convicted of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in the first major trial of the #MeToo movement in 2018; he was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison, but was released in 2021 when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction, saying his due process rights were violated.
In June, he was found guilty in a civil trial of sexually abusing Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion in 1975, when she was just 16 years old.
