Bill Cosby’s effort to have the complaint from ten alleged victims dismissed is met with resistance

UNITED STATES: Nine women have filed a lawsuit against actor and comedian Bill Cosby, claiming he “used his enormous power, fame and prestige, and claimed interest in helping them and/or their careers, as a pretense to isolate and sexually assault them.” Cosby is facing fresh accusations of sexual assault. 

The lawsuit was submitted to the US District Court for the District of Nevada on Wednesday, following the signing of a “lookback law” by Republican Governor Joe Lombardo, which removed the two-year statute of limitations for adult victims of sexual abuse lawsuits.

Janice Dickinson, Lise Lotte-Lublin, Janice Baker Kinney, Lili Bernard, Heidi Thomas, Linda Kirkpatrick, Rebecca Cooper, Pam Joy Abeyta, and Angela Leslie are among the plaintiffs who claim that between roughly 1979 and 1992, Cosby drugged and physically attacked them in hotels, homes, and dressing rooms in Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe.

Bill Cosby Found Guilty

More than sixty women have accused the 85-year-old Cosby of sexual abuse ranging from rape to touching. He was found guilty on three counts of aggravated indecent assault in a Pennsylvania case in 2018 and given a sentence ranging from three to ten years in prison. Cosby was freed in 2021 after the conviction was overturned due to prosecutors violating a deal that barred further charges.

A Los Angeles jury last year gave a $500,000 payout to a woman who claimed Cosby had sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion when she was sixteen years old in 1975. This month, Victoria Valentino, a former Playboy model, filed a lawsuit against Cosby in Los Angeles, using a similar statute of limitations extension.

Valentino claims that in 1969, Cosby drugged and sexually raped her. Lili Bernard, a participant in the Nevada lawsuit and a guest star on The Cosby Show, is suing in New Jersey as well. She claims that in 1990, Cosby drugged and sexually abused her in an Atlantic City hotel. Nevada native Lotte-Lublin, who pushed for the lookback statute, claims that in 1989, Cosby sexually assaulted her in a hotel in Las Vegas and gave her tampered beverages.

Victim is sexually abused

In 1982, Baker-Kinney, another plaintiff, claims she received an invitation to a party at Cosby’s Reno, Nevada, home; however, when she arrived, Cosby was by himself. She claims that Cosby offered her what she thought to be barbiturates. She also claims that after losing consciousness, she woke up to see Cosby’s hand under her top and her pants undone.

According to the lawsuit, Baker-Kinney was in bed with Cosby, naked, and he was touching her when she became cognizant again. Prior to this lawsuit, a few of the female plaintiffs in Nevada testified against Cosby. Model Dickinson testified in 1982 that she was drugged and sexually abused by Cosby in a Lake Tahoe hotel room. “We will not let these women to provide different versions of a purported accusation against Mr. Cosby in the future.