Bill Cosby is facing new accusations of sexual assault. On Wednesday, in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Nevada, Southern Division, 9 women said the comedian drugged, assaulted and raped them in incidents they say occurred between 1979 and 1992.
The women — Lise Lotte-Lublin, Lili Bernard, Janice Baker-Kinney, Rebecca Cooper, Linda Kirkpatrick, Janice Dickenson, Angela Leslie, Pam Joy Abeyta and Heidi Thomas — say that they were all “sexually battered, assaulted, and abused” by Cosby “in a similar manner” in a Las Vegas hotel that Cosby frequently stayed at.
NBC will air an exclusive interview with the women on Thursday.
Each woman says Cosby approached them with offers to help them in their careers, using “his enormous power, fame, and prestige, and claimed interest” in order to “isolate and sexually assault them.”
The lawsuit then breaks down the individual accusations, each following a familiar pattern of being lured to a secluded place, pressured to take drugs, and then being raped. “Cosby forcefully sexually penetrated or otherwise sexually assaulted Plaintiffs against their will, all while Cosby knew they were mentally and physically incapable of resisting or consenting,” the suit says.
The women say they “sustained in the past and will continue to sustain in the future psychological injury, pain, and suffering, serious and severe psychological and emotional distress, mental anguish, embarrassment, and humiliation,” and that they suffered medical expenses and economic problems as a result of their experiences.
And plaintiffs are requesting a jury trial, and seek compensatory damages “for pain, suffering, injury, emotuonal distress and for medical expenses past and future,” pre-and-post-judgment interest, punitive damages and the coverage of legal fees, as determined by a jury.
In a statement provided to TheWrap, Cosby’s spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, said, “It’s interesting that these ‘Look Back Windows’ are formulating only in those states (New Jersey, New York, Los Angeles and Nevada) where many of Mr. Cosby’s alleged accusers reside. It makes ALL Americans ask the question, ‘Who’s funding these alleged accusers and who’s funding these lawmakers?’”
“Mr. Cosby is a Citizen of these United States but these judges and lawmakers are consistently allowing these civil suits to flood their dockets—knowing that these women are not fighting for victims—but for their addiction to massive amounts of media attention and greed. From this day forward, we will not continue to allow these women to parade various accounts of an alleged allegation against Mr. Cosby anymore without vetting them in the court of public opinion and inside of the courtroom. Thank you,” the statement concluded.
This is only the latest in a long list of the dozens women who have come forward to accuse Cosby of rape. Most recently in June, 2022 he was ordered to pay $500,000 to a woman who says he raped her at the Playboy Mansion in the early 1970s, when she was 16.
He was previously convicted in criminal court of sexual assault in 2018 and spent several years in prison before the conviction was overturned in 2021 on what critics said were flimsy grounds. He has consistently denied the accusations.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.