Bill Cosby, who was released from prison but is still facing accusations of being a sex offender, was sued Thursday by a former Playboy model who accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting him more than 50 years ago.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles by 80-year-old Victoria Valentino, accuses Cosby of assault, was released in 1969 after Cosby and a friend met him for dinner at a restaurant. It is said that it happened in
The lawsuit was brought in a new framework california law This temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on sexual assault cases.
Valentino, a long-time public critic of Cosby and a supporter of other accusers who have appeared in previous lawsuits against Cosby, said in an interview that the new law made legal action possible. said he was grateful.
“This new law came into force, but never in a million years did I expect to see tangible justice,” Valentino said.
Cosby’s spokesman Andrew Wyatt said Valentino made the accusations “without any evidence or facts” and said her statements contained “contradictions”.
He also criticized the so-called lookback windows in force in California and other states, arguing they were “a total violation of all American constitutional rights.” He said the defendants struggled to sort through the evidence because so much time had passed.
“Which cemeteries can Mr Cosby visit to find potential witnesses to testify on his behalf?” Wyatt said in a statement.
Cosby, 85, was convicted in Pennsylvania in 2018 of three counts of aggravated lewdness against Andrea Constand, a woman he taught at Temple University.
However, he was released in 2021 after serving nearly three years of a three to 10-year prison sentence. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court then overturned the conviction, ruling that a “agreement not to prosecute” with former prosecutors meant that he would be prosecuted. Cosby should not have been charged in this case.
Last year, in a civil lawsuit filed by a woman, Judy Hughes, a California jury found that Judy Hughes sexually assaulted her in 1975. On that occasion, when she was a 16-year-old girl, she accepted an invitation to the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. . Last year, six other women filed civil lawsuits against Mr. Cosby under similar retroactive provisions of New York law. Dozens of other women have not filed charges but have come forward with their testimony of sexual misconduct in recent years.
Cosby has consistently denied the accusations and argued that whenever he had a sexual relationship with someone, it was consensual.
According to the lawsuit, Valentino met Cosby during an audition in 1969 and spoke to Cosby in the studio trailer.
Later that year, he approached her at a restaurant when she was still agitated and about to come to terms with the drowning of her 6-year-old son, according to the complaint. The man gave her her phone number, after which she drove Valentino and her friend to a restaurant on the Sunset Strip, according to her court documents.
According to the complaint, Cosby gave her two pills at dinner and then drove Valentino and a friend to a nearby office, where Valentino passed out and was assaulted when he woke up. It is said that
“I believe there is some generational trauma that has to be dealt with,” Valentino said of the possibility of facing Cosby in court. “When we are raped, it doesn’t mean our car is stolen. It’s irretrievable. It’s passed on to our children.”
Jeff Anderson, Valentino’s attorney and one of the women who sued Cosby in New York, said California’s new law “gives people like her an opportunity to do something about it.” rice field.
