Bill Cosby is facing even more sexual assault accusations as five women have sued the former comedian and NBCUniversal for assault and battery.
Two former actresses from The Cosby Show alongside three other women have accused Cosby of assault, battery, infliction of emotional distress and false imprisonment. The suit also accuses the media companies they worked under for negligence.
The 34-page lawsuit is brought by the actresses Lili Bernard and Eden Tirl as well as Jewel Gittens, Jennifer Thompson and Cindra Ladd. The defendants named in the suit includes Cosby and the media companies NBCUniversal Media, Kaufman Astoria Studios and The Carsey-Werner Company, which together ran “The Cosby Show” from 1984 to 1992.
“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,” the suit states.
“Now, these five Plaintiffs have come forward to stand up for themselves and others, after they were sexually abused and assaulted by Bill Cosby.”
“Over the course of several decades, Bill Cosby engaged in the serial sexual assault of dozens of women for his sexual gratification while the co-defendants enabled and aided these sexual assaults to benefit financially by their association with Bill Cosby” (You can read the complaint here).
So far, over 60 women have claimed that Cosby drugged and assaulted them over the decades with a similar combo of pills and alcohol as alleged in this suit.
This suit comes after New York Governor, Kathy Hochul enacted the Adult Survivors Act into law back in May. The act which went into effect on November 24, suspends the statute of limitations on certain sex crimes and also affords the plaintiffs a one-year window to sue their abusers.
The law mirrors the state’s Child Victims Act of 2019, which also opened a two-year window for child sex abuse survivors to sue their abusers. That law yielded about 10,600 lawsuits, including a prominent case against Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein.
