Summary: Comedian Bill Cosby files his own defamation lawsuit against his accusers in what may be an attempt to recover some dignity from his tarnished reputation.
After being sued by several women for defamation, Bill Cosby is taking a jab and suing the women for the same thing. Due to the statute of limitations on many of the sexual assault accusations, many have instead turned to suing Cosby and his legal team over their denials of their allegations of abuse.
Tamara Green filed the suit last December with Therese Serignese and Linda Traitz joining the suit soon after. By November, Barbara Bowman, Louisa Moritz, Joan Tarshis, and Angela Leslie had also joined into the defamation lawsuit. Cosby had tried to have the case dismissed, but a Massachusetts federal judge denied his request.
The comedian has now decided to give the accusers a taste of their own medicine by claiming in his own defamation lawsuit that the women have ruined his “honorable legacy and reputation” with their “unsubstantiated accusations” and that they are “willfully, maliciously, and falsely” making accusations “of multi-decade-old purported sexual misconduct.” The lawsuit goes on to claim that their lawsuit is “nothing more than an opportunistic attempt to extract financial gain from him.”
Cosby still adamantly denies ever sexually assaulting the seven women in the defamation suit despite the confession that he did obtain drugs for the purpose of doing such.
The primary complaint in Cosby’s lawsuit is the affect the accusations had on pending projects with NBC and Netflix. The comedian was in discussions with both companies when the accusations resurfaced last year causing “both NBC and Netflix to postpone or cancel their contracts with Mr. Cosby.” The suit does not specify an amount of damages.
Cosby has retained Christopher Tayback of Quinn Emanuel in Los Angeles, John Egan in Massachusetts, and Monique Pressley in Washington D.C. The accusers’ attorney is Joseph Cammarata.
- See Cosby and Singer Break Up for more information.
Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/bill-cosby-countersues-accusers-defamation-848513
Photo: abcnews.go.com