Five women sue Bill Cosby for sexually abusing them

Five women who accuse Bill Cosby of having sexually abused them decades ago have filed a lawsuit this week against the comedian, taking advantage of a new “legal window” in New York that allows victims of this type of crime for a year go to court even if the cases have prescribed.

Cosby, who has been accused by dozens of women and who in 2018 he was sentenced to up to ten years in jail for a sexual assault, he was released from prison in 2021 after a court overturned his conviction because of a prior civil settlement that invalidated the trial.

This new lawsuit, filed on Monday and echoed by the US media on Tuesday, also targets the group NBCUniversalKaufman Astoria studios and The Carsey-Werner Company, which produced the popular “The Cosby Show” between 1984 and 1992.

Two of the applicants are old actresses of that program, among them Lili Bernard, who last year had filed another lawsuit for this reason in the state of New Jersey to try to obtain compensation for 125 million dollars and that he had already publicly accused the artist in 2015.

Four of the alleged assaults took place between the eighties and ninetiesthe high point of Cosby’s career, while the fifth dates back to 1969. The five women are suing Cosby, now 85, for sexual assault and battery, alleging that she forced them into relationships or raped them, in some cases after allegedly drugging them with a substance dissolved in her drinks.

In the case of the companies named in the lawsuit, the plaintiffs consider that they were negligent in doing nothing to prevent the abuses.

The action of these five women before the New York Justice comes after this state approved a law that gives a one-year period to seek justice for sexual crimes that have so far been prescribed. Under this regulation, for example, the former US president was sued last month donald trump by journalist E. Jean Carroll, who accuses him of an alleged rape almost 30 years ago.

In a message sent to various US media, a lawyer for Cosby denied the accusations against his client and accused the plaintiffs of only seeking money.