NEW YORK — Five women have filed a sexual assault lawsuit against disgraced comedy icon Bill Cosby and NBC under New York state’s Adult Survivors Act.
In their Manhattan Supreme Court suit filed Monday, the accusers, three of whom were actresses with brief roles on “The Cosby Show,” say they were “sexually assaulted and battered” by Cosby. Several accuse him of slipping drugs into their drinks and raping them while they were unconscious.
The women also say NBCUniversal Media, LLC, Kaufman Astoria Studios and The Carsey-Werner Company, “condoned and encouraged Bill Cosby ... by doing nothing to stop it despite knowledge of his serial sexual abuse of women, and by providing Bill Cosby with staff and facilities to groom and sexually abuse women.”
The companies ran “The Cosby Show” while it was on the air from 1984 to 1992.
The accusers include Lili Bernard, Eden Tirl, Jewel Gittens and Jennifer Thompson, all of whom say Cosby offered to mentor them and put them on the show. Three of them appeared on “The Cosby Show.”
“I am grateful to New York state to be able to stand with my fellow survivors as we support each other in our quest for justice,” Bernard said Tuesday. “I also encourage all other survivors to stand up and have their voices heard.”
The fifth accuser, Hollywood executive Cindra Ladd, said she was a “platonic” friend of Cosby’s since 1969. She said that one night, when they went to a movie together, he gave her a pill that knocked her unconscious, then raped her.
The Adult Survivors Act created a one-year period for victims to take legal action against their alleged attackers in cases previously barred by time limits. The act, signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul, has opened the door for a lawsuit against ex-President Donald Trump in a rape case, and against two banks for enabling the long-time sexual abuse of late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“This is an important step toward holding Bill Cosby and his enablers accountable for their actions and finding some measure of justice for the women they have harmed. We are thankful for the plaintiffs in this lawsuit and other similarly situated women for their bravery in facing their abusers,” said lawyer Jordan Rutsky, who is representing the women.
Cosby, 84, was released from prison last year on a technicality after he was convicted in 2018 of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in Pennsylvania. Constand was one of dozens of women who accused Cosby of sexual assault during his rise to fame as “America’s Dad.”
Last June, a civil court jury in California found Cosby liable for sexual abuse in the case of Judy Huth, who filed a lawsuit in 2014 saying Cosby sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion in 1975.
In a statement to several news outlets, Cosby publicist Andrew Wyatt called the new lawsuit “frivolous,” and denied the charges, saying the allegations were “all about money.”
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