Rape allegations mount against Bill Cosby #1

[Donjeta]

Long but good read, includes several old articles and court records, and interesting discussion about the sealing of materials in the old court case:

http://deadspin.com/the-former-basketball-player-who-brought-down-bill-cosb-1661203971

Just three days after she went to the police, the calls began. Either Cosby or one of his representatives would phone up Constand or her mother, always offering either an apology or money, she would later tell the court. There were at least four calls, according to Constand, and among the Cosby reps was lawyer Martin Singer, known in Hollywood as one of the go-to pit bulls for celebrities in need of getting a scandal quashed and a master of the nasty letter. Constand said she didn't accept anything. Cosby himself confirmed this, telling Cheltenham police that neither woman asked him for money, "but had only asked him to apologize to Plaintiff and her mother, which he did," according to one filing.

That's not what Cosby's team told reporters, though. Here's one report from the proto-TMZ website Celebrity Justice, based on "sources connected to Bill Cosby." The report even includes "sources" talking to the show's executive producer, future TMZ founder Harvey Levin. Constand would later claim in court that the anonymous"Cosby rep" was Singer.

What Cosby's team requested was extensive. They asked that everything found in discovery be considered confidential and that no one talk publicly about discovery. They wanted all court filings referencing evidence found in discovery to be "filed under seal." The motions said this was necessary to protect Cosby and the rest from "undue embarrassment, oppression, and annoyance and preserving his right to a fair trial." The women's stories, they argued, also must be kept away from the public.

Plaintiff has moved to protect the identity of the Defendant's other alleged accusers from public disclosure, citing their privacy interests and fear of embarrassment. But, tellingly, Plaintiff only seeks to conceal their names, not their allegations. This imbalance would be grossly unfair to the Defendant. While he has no desire to publicize the names of any person who prefer to remain anonymous, the Plaintiff and her attorneys should not be allowed to conceal those names and simultaneously exploit their allegations. In fairness to the Defendant, the names and the allegations should both remain confidential.

In her legal team's response to Cosby, Constand talked about her life since her identity had become public: reporters surrounding her house, her name plastered across TVs and newspapers, unwanted phone calls to her home, people who claimed they were journalists trying to get inside her home by faking flower deliveries. All the while Cosby, toured the country, cracked jokes, and lectured America about its morals and baggy pants.

Defendant can convene reporters and offer exclusive interviews; defendant can speak to audiences all over the country, proclaiming himself to be a moral man, above reproach. It is simply the fact that the media is neutral and ready to offer a counter-balance to his self-image, and is also prepared to publish plaintiff's account as well as the accounts of the Jane Doe witnesses, that troubles defendant.

To grant defendant's motion is even more inequitable because defendant is a public figure, who lectures to the American public about issues such as morality, and entertains audiences with his humor. Indeed, defendant even made "drugging" a topic of laughter at one of his performances, asking an audience participant if she would claim to be "drugged" by him. ... None of these women are here by choice. Defendant chose to conduct himself in this manner.

The seals created an odd dynamic, with each side filing public motions containing smidgens of details from the closed files, almost like teasers of what was being hidden. Cosby's team used the process to reveal personal information about Constand: her family members, their names and addresses, and where she was studying massage therapy. Constand's team used them to shed light on what was being placed under seal and expose the tactics that kept Cosby's dark side from getting out. There was, for instance, this detail, dropped into some bickering over interviewing Constand's family in Canada.

Following Defendant's telephone conversation with Plaintiff and her mother in January 2005, Defendant had employees of William Morris and his California attorney, Martin Singer, Esquire, call Plaintiff in order to attempt to arrange a meeting or attempt to discuss compensation. Similarly, in the past, Defendant caused a William Morris employee to mail a note and check to a Jane Doe witness.

The terms of Constand's settlement with Cosby have never been disclosed. The only hint came two weeks ago, when Cosby's website published a defensive statement that said "decade-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced. The fact they are being repeated does not make them true. Mr. Cosby does not intend to dignify these allegations with any comment." Cosby's team did comment again, a day later, with a very different take.

Joint statement from Dolores Troiani, counsel to Andrea Constand, and John P. Schmitt, counsel to Bill Cosby.

The statement released by Mr. Cosby's attorney over the weekend was not intended to refer in any way to Andrea Constand. As previously reported, differences between Mr. Cosby and Ms. Constand were resolved to the mutual satisfaction of Mr. Cosby and Ms. Constand years ago. Neither Mr. Cosby nor Ms. Constand intends to comment further on the matter.

 

[Blondie in Spokane]

I wonder how Martin Singer is able to sleep at night. What an a-hole.

 

[Blondie in Spokane]

EXCLUSIVE: The one woman who Bill Cosby admits he cheated with says 'he drugged and raped me too - and got me PREGNANT'

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-28...-cheated-says-drugged-raped-got-PREGNANT.html

 

[Donjeta]

http://www.tennessean.com/story/new...-hardeman-cancels-bill-cosby-speech/19544395/

Freed-Hardeman University has canceled Bill Cosby’s appearance as keynote speaker at the university’s 50th annual Benefit Dinner on Dec. 5.

old article about Andrea Constand
http://articles.philly.com/2005-01-...university-employee-bill-cosby-massage-school


Another old article:
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20059561,00.html

Ferrier, then separated from her college sweetheart, divorced in 1985 and, she says, began an on-and-off consensual affair with Cosby that lasted several years. "He kept luring me in," she says. "I felt like I couldn't say no." Now a single mother of three and living in Denver, Ferrier, 47, says her experience with Cosby made it hard for her to trust other men. "She was so burdened by this," says her friend Lee Vittner, an escrow manager who says she first heard Ferrier's story five years ago. "Cosby is powerful, but not being the only one out there made coming forward a little less scary for Beth."

PEOPLE asked Jo Farrell about introducing Ferrier and Bowman to Cosby; now retired from show business and working as an image consultant, she says she only supplied Cosby with tapes and portfolios of her clients. "He wanted to look at children and girls for his show," says Farrell, 75. "I wasn't in on personal interviews."

Some of those who know Bill Cosby well say the charges are hard to believe. "Bill is good-hearted, he really is," says his longtime friend and former journalist Chuck Stone. "He and Camille are very close."

http://www.people.com/article/bill-cosby-wife-camille-stands-by-him

But one family friend tells PEOPLE that Camille, who married Cosby 51 years ago when she was only 19, remains a huge source of support "on every level."

"She's behind him," the source says. "I think that their half-century of marriage and love and accomplishment, that outweighs things like this."

What's a few serial rape suspicions between a loving couple.

"One of Camille's favorite words is 'integrity,' and she's got a very high moral compass," the family friend tells PEOPLE. "When they first got together – she was 19 and he was 26 when they married ... he was still doing some black humor, as in black race humor, and she said, 'You don't need to do that. Just be yourself.' She's always been his number-one fan and number-one critic. He trusts her to the ends of the earth and beyond. She's always had input. She's also his muse, really, when you think about it."

I'd hate to be the muse of anybody who might end up drugging and raping multiple women.. oh well

Hearing from an old friend:

Rosemary O'Brien, who has known Bill Cosby nearly 25 years, starting in 1990 when she joined NBC and became the network's publicist for The Cosby Show for its last three seasons, says it was evident how important Cosby's wife and children – Erika, Erinn, Ennis, Ensa and Evin – are to him.

"I felt with him being a father with daughters and being married to an amazing woman, we were all treated in that way," she says. "He would always reference 'Mrs. Cosby' so you always felt that there was respect."

Allegations that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted women have been around for years. Some intrepid reporters have tried to hold Cosby accountable for his alleged actions. But for a multitude of complex and uncomfortable reasons — the absence of criminal charges; the collective reluctance to believe that evil lurked in America's favorite TV dad; aggressive pushback by the Cosby forces; reporters too busy to chew on stories that would require long sit-downs with lawyers — the ugly allegations remained on the periphery of public discussions about Cosby.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...social-media-kept-cosby-story-alive/70100742/

So what made Cosby's alleged bad behavior a megastory this time around? Not just Twitter. Social media was in its full swing when Gawker's Tom Scocca wrote extensively in February about Cosby's alleged abuse, but that story didn't gain nearly the traction Buress' skit did.

Here's Scocca story:
http://gawker.com/who-wants-to-remember-bill-cosbys-multiple-sex-assaul-1515923178

So the current crisis over how people are supposed to feel about Woody Allen is on some level odd. Woody Allen's status as an accused child molester has been a matter of public record since before Manhattan Murder Mystery came out. Anyone who didn't think about it before now had chosen not to think about it.

Not thinking about it is a popular and powerful choice.

To reiterate: This was in People magazine, published nationwide in December 2006. Four women said publicly, in major media outlets, that Bill Cosby had drugged and sexually assaulted them. This coverage was more recent and possibly more prominent that the coverage of the abuse allegations against Woody Allen.

And? Basically nobody wanted to live in a world where Bill Cosby was a sexual predator. It was too much to handle.

http://gawker.com/who-wants-to-remember-bill-cosbys-multiple-sex-assaul-1515923178

No one was talking about it anymore. The whole thing had been, and it remained, something walled off from our collective understanding of Bill Cosby.

With shocking speed, it was effectively forgotten. When the subject came up today, more than half the Gawker staff had no memory of any sexual allegations against Bill Cosby. In 2009, Cosby was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for his distinguished achievements in humor. In 2010, he was honored with the Marian Anderson Award, for "critically acclaimed artists who have impacted society in a positive way, either through their work or their support for an important cause." In 2011, the Marian Anderson Award went to Mia Farrow.

 

[Donjeta]

I'm sorry for spamming the thread but I find this story and the coverage endlessly fascinating with the way people turned a blind eye to something like serial rape suspicions and were willing to accept Cosby as a moral teacher. Like Woody Allen's dirty laundry was out there but it was the elephant in the room, no one was talking about it. And some still want to shut the stories up and hear no evil.

I don't know... I have managed to avoid this until now as well although I have been a compulsive news reader. I haven't followed Cosby's career closely but I have no recollection of hearing about the rape allegations when they were first brought out. Either I never read about it or I blacked it out like the rest of the world did. Just how does it happen? Is serial rape not a big deal?

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/05/-this-is-how-we-lost-to-the-white-man/306774/
This may have been posted before. It's another older, long read that has the rape allegations as a small footnote in the last page of seven.

Much pop psychology has been devoted to Cosby’s transformation into such a high-octane, high-profile activist. His nemesis Dyson says that Cosby, in his later years, is following in the dishonorable tradition of upper-class African Americans who denounce their less fortunate brethren. Others have suggested more-sinister motivations—that Cosby is covering for his own alleged transgressions. (In 2006, Cosby settled a civil lawsuit filed by a woman who claimed that he had sexually assaulted her; other women have come forward with similar allegations that have not gone to court.) But the depth of his commitment would seem to belie such suspicions, and in any case, they do not seem to have affected his hold on his audience: in the November Pew survey, 85 percent of all African American respondents considered him a “good influence” on the black community, above Obama (76 percent) and second only to Oprah Winfrey (87 percent).

Anyway, apparently the psychiatrist who said Cosby is a good guy or words to that effect published a book with him.

Behind the scenes, Cosby hired the Harvard psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint to make sure that the show never trafficked in stereotypes and that it depicted blacks in a dignified light. Picking up Cosby’s fixation on education, Poussaint had writers insert references to black schools. “If the script mentioned Oberlin, Texas Tech, or Yale, we’d circle it and tell them to mention a black college,” Poussaint told me in a phone interview last year. “I remember going to work the next day and white people saying, ‘What’s the school called Morehouse?’”

Black conservatives like Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, have at times allied themselves with black liberals. But in general, they have upheld a core of beliefs laid out by Garvey almost a century ago: a skepticism of (white) government as a mediating force in the “Negro problem,” a strong belief in the singular will of black people, and a fixation on a supposedly glorious black past.

Those beliefs also animate Come On People, the manifesto that Cosby and Poussaint published last fall. Although it does not totally dismiss government programs, the book mostly advocates solutions from within as a cure for black America’s dismal vital statistics. “Once we find our bearings,” they write, “we can move forward, as we have always done, on the path from victims to victors.” Come On People is heavy on black pride (“no group of people has had the impact on the culture of the whole world that African Americans have had, and much of that impact has been for the good&#8221, and heavier on the idea of the Great Fall—the theory, in this case, that post–Jim Crow blacks have lost touch with the cultural traditions that enabled them to persevere through centuries of oppression.



“For all the woes of segregation, there were some good things to come out of it,” Cosby and Poussaint write. “One was that it forced us to take care of ourselves. When restaurants, laundries, hotels, theaters, groceries, and clothing stores were segregated, black people opened and ran their own. Black life insurance companies and banks thrived, as well as black funeral homes … Such successes provided jobs and strength to black economic well-being. They also gave black people that gratifying sense of an interdependent community.” Although the authors take pains to put some distance between themselves and the Nation of Islam, they approvingly quote one of its ministers who spoke at a call-out in Compton, California: “I went to Koreatown today and I met with the Korean merchants,” the minister told the crowd. “I love them. You know why? They got a place called what? Koreatown. When I left them, I went to Chinatown. They got a place called what? Chinatown. Where is your town?”

Their book laments the misogyny in rap songs... Hrmph.

Instead of waiting for handouts or outside help, Cosby argues, disadvantaged blacks should start by purging their own culture of noxious elements like gangsta rap, a favorite target. “What do record producers think when they churn out that gangsta rap with antisocial, women-hating messages?,” Cosby and Poussaint ask in their book. “Do they think that black male youth won’t act out what they have repeated since they were old enough to listen?” Cosby’s rhetoric on culture echoes—and amplifies—a swelling strain of black opinion: last November’s Pew study reported that 71 percent of blacks feel that rap is a bad influence.

Is that his excuse? :O The music made me act out? But he started in the 60's , allegedly.

 

[kimi_SFC]

Donjeta, FWIW, your posts are informative, and appreciated. They are as far away from spamming the thread as one can get IMVHO.

:loveyou: for caring enough about the topic to comb the internets to keep us up to date. Regardless of how one feels about the topic, knowledge is power. That's just how I see it.

:yourock:


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Slebby]

Donjeta, I too am thoroughly focussed on this story. I am enjoying everything you've posted. It's not just the Cosby story, but the fact that we are on the edge of some very positive social change. At least, I hope we are. As I look ahead to holiday discussions I just know Cosby will be a topic of discussion. I am bracing myself for those tough debates about "why didn't they report it?", the victim shaming, etc. I know my own dad, who could pass for Cliff Huxtable's brother (except that he's white, lol), is going to be very resistant to believing the accusations. He is a huge Cosby fan, he's the same age as Cosby, I think he always identified with his tv character and his father figure role. It wouldn't be a holiday without a good debate with my dad! Hopefully I can educate him about rape and rape culture. I'm afraid both my parents still buy into the idea that a woman can be "asking for it", that rape happens in a dark alley in the wrong part of town, where no self-respecting woman dare tread. Sigh.

Imo


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[BirdycatNY]

I would love to hear from the cast on the Cosby show about this. Iam sure if true; then they would know. They all worked together for a decade. But since he helped accelerate their stardom; They may not say nothing. Especialy since he is almost 80.

I hope they speak up too if they are aware of it or a victim of it. I doubt it though because possible pressure or financial loss from "the Cosby show". But I would hope that they speak up if they know something about BC. jmo

 

[Nova]

Did someone accuse Donjeta of spamming???!!! Good grief! She and Izzy have been the primary reporters on this subject. I can't thank either of them enough!

***

There are a lot of words Glenn Beck doesn't understand; "rape" is only one of them.

***

Since the (by my count, now 19) women who have accused Cosby have told remarkably similar stories, I'd like to know how Cosby's defenders think the accusers got together to synchronize their stories? Some lived in California, some in New York, some in Philadelphia. Some are black, some are white. Some are wealthy, some are not. Their encounters with Mr Cosby spanned four decades. Was there a convention for women who wanted to bring down one or our most beloved entertainers? Where was it held and when?

I mean, I might be suspicious if there were a sudden rash of rape accusations against Mel Gibson since he's displayed his true colors. But Cosby seems like the last person who would be the target of such a conspiracy. So why him?

***

Finally, I'm not criticizing as I think each of us must examine his/her own conscience on the subject; but to me, Camille Cosby is off-limits, unless we get evidence she aided and abetted the rapes. By my count, we don't even know that she knew about them, except by rumor; she probably knew Cosby was a serial philanderer, but serial rapist is something else entirely.

Why she stayed with him is her business and something we can't know unless she chooses to speak out.

In the meantime, I think the less said about her, the better. (But, again, this is just based on my feeling that nobody really knows what happens between husband and wife. I realize other posters may see the situation differently.)

 

[Nova]

I hope they speak up too if they are aware of it or a victim of it. I doubt it though because possible pressure or financial loss from "the Cosby show". But I would hope that they speak up if they know something about BC. jmo

Of course, if channels no longer show THE COSBY SHOW, the cast members won't see any additional residuals (which might be a reason to support Cosby), but my understanding from actor friends is that after a few repeats, residuals decline to pennies per showing. I haven't seen their contracts, but I doubt whether the cast members get that much money from syndication any more.

On the other hand, THE COSBY SHOW may have been a golden period in their lives. (Steady work is a treat for any actor.) So maybe they don't want to tarnish everyone's memory of the show.

 

[CuriousPortlander]

Bill Cosby breaks silence on rape allegations, friend drops bombshell
3 days ago

Flash-forward to Sunday morning: A former NBC employee and friend of Cosby who acted as his so-called "fixer" for years, alleged that the comedian paid several women off after he had slept with them. Frank Scotti told the New York Daily News that he helped Cosby pay several thousands of dollars to eight women at the end of the 1980s.

"He had everybody fooled," Scotti said. "Nobody suspected."

He provided the Daily News with copies of money orders Cosby sent to the women.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/11/23/bill-cosby-rape-allegations-friend/

 

[newone]

7 shows cancelled but 28 still going forward

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...thern-ontario-amid-rape-accusations-1.2851011

''There are 28-dates left on his tour. His shows often skip larger metropolitan areas for smaller outlying cities like Kitchener or his most recent show in Florida.''

 

[CuriousPortlander]

Bill Cosby Gave Interview to Keep Charges Secret
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and LORNE MANLYNOV. 26, 2014

Bill Cosby gave an exclusive interview to The National Enquirer in 2005 in exchange for a promise by the tabloid that it would drop a more damaging article about previously undisclosed sexual assault allegations, according to his testimony in a federal lawsuit.

Mr. Cosby was at the time facing allegations by Andrea Constand, a staff member with the basketball program at Temple University, Mr. Cosby’s alma mater, who said she had been drugged and molested by him a year earlier.

In previously sealed court documents at Federal District Court in Philadelphia, Mr. Cosby acknowledged under oath in September 2005 that he sought to block The Enquirer from publishing its interview with Beth Ferrier, a former model who said he had drugged and sexually assaulted her in the mid-1980s, because he thought a second account would bolster the credibility of Ms. Constand’s accusations. The documents had been unsealed in recent months, and in response to requests from the news media were released on Wednesday.

...Mr. Cosby had been read a draft of the proposed article about Ms. Ferrier by John P. Schmitt, his lawyer, and was told she had passed a lie-detector test.

...“I am not going to give in to people who try to exploit me because of my celebrity status,” he said.

(BBM)

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/business/media/cosby-gave-interview-to-keep-charges-secret.html?_r=0

My two cents: I wonder how he feels now that 19 women have come forward.

If he turns out to be guilty, I guess it's OK in his mind that he exploited others because of his celebrity status. That would be quite the double standard. Just sayin'...

 

[Morag]

Unless he submits to polygraphs from independent examiners (the FBI, say), the results are going to be questioned even if he does pass. Cosby has more than enough money to "buy" 18 polygraph passes.

Of course; it wouldn't help him at all to just hire a few "tame" polygraph experts. I'm not holding my breath waiting for this development.

 

[IzzyBlanche]

Finally, I'm not criticizing as I think each of us must examine his/her own conscience on the subject; but to me, Camille Cosby is off-limits, unless we get evidence she aided and abetted the rapes. By my count, we don't even know that she knew about them, except by rumor; she probably knew Cosby was a serial philanderer, but serial rapist is something else entirely.

Why she stayed with him is her business and something we can't know unless she chooses to speak out.

In the meantime, I think the less said about her, the better. (But, again, this is just based on my feeling that nobody really knows what happens between husband and wife. I realize other posters may see the situation differently.)

[snipped for focus]

I started to write that I agree with you, but then the more I thought about it, the more I don't.

I agree in principle that a spouse in such a situation should be off limits.

[Jumping off from your post from here, not directed at you]

However, Cosby settled with Andrea Constand a decade ago at who knows what dollar amount, which effectively silenced the other ten-plus women (I can't keep track of the numbers anymore) who were ready to testify against him.

If it were my husband and I believed he was innocent, such a settlement giving away part of our mutual wealth for unfounded sordid charges would be over my dead body. Particularly if I possessed the money enough to fight it out in court, which the Cosbys obviously did.

Even before that, according to Carla Ferrigno's account, Camille retired for the evening, leaving her popular celebrity husband alone playing pool with a pretty young woman that some employee brought to their home that night. That defies credibility to me.

Sadly, I am starting to think Camille knew what Cosby was up to and chose to look the other way as he continued to attack women. If so, she is complicit in his crimes.

All MOO of course and I did say IF.

 

[CuriousPortlander]

'Cosby' author sorry for omitting assault charges
Associated Press By HILLEL ITALIE November 25, 2014 12:52 PM


NEW YORK (AP) — The author of a new Bill Cosby biography is apologizing for not pursuing allegations that the comedian had drugged and sexually assaulted numerous women.
Related Stories

Mark Whitaker, whose "Cosby: His Life and Times" was published in September, tweeted Monday that he was wrong not to "aggressively" look into the charges and promised to address them "at the appropriate time."

(BBM)


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/cosby-author-sorry-omitting-assault-charges-163436263.html

 

[Truthy]

Some thoughts for anyone who thinks reporting promptly is some kind of magic bullet, educate yourself about how the justice system actually works:


"The problem once more isn’t just one university, but the broader culture. It’s ubiquitous. This month an inspector-general report in New Orleans revealed that only 14 percent of sexual assault cases referred to the special victims unit there were even investigated. A 2-year-old was treated in a hospital emergency room for a sexual assault and had a sexually transmitted disease, yet detectives closed the case without an investigation."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/opinion/nicholas-kristof-bill-cosby-uva-and-rape.html?_r=0

 

[CuriousPortlander]

Cosby testimony describes accuser's spiked story
Associated Press By MARYCLAIRE DALE 26 minutes ago

..."Did you ever think that if Beth Ferrier's story was printed in the National Enquirer, that that would make the public believe that maybe Andrea was also telling the truth?" Cosby was asked.

"Exactly," Cosby replied, according to court motions initially filed under seal and made available from archived federal court records.

...Cosby had said at his deposition that Constand and her mother asked only for an apology in early phone calls about the issue in January 2005, and he said they received one.

"Andrea's mother said, 'That's all I wanted, Bill,'" Cosby testified.

Constand's lawyers argued in their defamation suit: "Requesting only an apology is not the action of an extortionist or someone who wants to 'exploit' a celebrity."

They said that Cosby later called back and offered to pay for Constand's "education."

...In the legal deposition, taken at a Philadelphia hotel, Constand's lawyer asked Cosby if he tried in the Enquirer article "to make the public believe that Andrea was not telling the truth?"

"Yes," Cosby replied.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/cosby-testimony-describes-accusers-spiked-story-230131329.html

-----------

So now I'm wondering...what exactly did he apologize for?

 

[CuriousPortlander]

A Timeline of the Abuse Charges Against Bill Cosby [Updated]
Yesterday at 6:08 AM

...The book is notable, however, for its complete avoidance of sexual abuse allegations that have dogged Cosby for more than a decade. In a statement to Buzzfeed's Kate Aurthur, Whitaker says, "I didn’t want to print allegations that I couldn’t confirm independently." Regardless, their absence is glaring. Consider the following timeline an appendix to the book.


November 2002
Andrea Constand, director of operations for Temple University’s women’s basketball team, allegedly met with Bill Cosby. Constand claims that Cosby, who had been a member of Temple’s track and field and football teams, assumed a role as her mentor.

January 2004
According to Constand, she visited Cosby at his Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, home to discuss career advice, and after allegedly (according to a civil lawsuit she would later file) giving her "herbal" pills to ease her anxiety, Cosby “touched her breasts and vaginal area, rubbed his penis against her hand, and digitally penetrated” her.

January 13, 2005
Constand, who had since moved near Toronto to study massage therapy, accuses Cosby of "inappropriate touching" — groping her breasts and placing her hand on his genitals — to Canadian authorities. Cosby’s lawyer calls her allegation "utterly preposterous" and "plainly bizarre.”

January 27, 2005
ABC News reports that the interaction between Constand and Cosby — who is at this point cooperating with the investigation — might have been consensual.

Read more: http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/timeline-of-the-abuse-charges-against-cosby.html

 

[Donjeta]

Granted, humans are infinitely complex, and consent and coercion represent two poles on a continuum that can fade into grays. We shouldn’t short-circuit the rights of men accused of misconduct, and frustratingly often it may be impossible to attain certainty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Yet let’s be real. The dominant problem is not an epidemic of men falsely accused of rape, but of women who endure sexual violence — including about one female college student in five, according to the White House.

One study published in 2002 found that about 90 percent of college rapes were committed by a tiny number of serial rapists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/opinion/nicholas-kristof-bill-cosby-uva-and-rape.html?_r=0

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Bill Cosby testified under oath in 2005 that he gave the National Enquirer an exclusive interview about looming sexual-assault accusations by a Canadian woman against him in exchange for the tabloid spiking a second accuser’s story.

Excerpts released Wednesday of Cosby’s deposition from a civil lawsuit filed by Andrea Constand quote Cosby as saying he feared the public would believe her sexual-assault accusations if the Enquirer published similar claims by Beth Ferrier. Both women accused Cosby of drugging and molesting them.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...escribes-accusers-spiked-story/#ixzz3KGbGIgv1
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

http://www.people.com/article/bill-cosby-children-wife-family-real-cosby-kids
Bill Cosby's Children: The Troubles and Tragedy of a Famous Family

The couple's only son, Ennis, was murdered in 1997. He was shot to death at age 27 during an attempted robbery on a Los Angeles freeway ramp as he tried to change a flat tire.

http://www.bustle.com/articles/5118...ks-out-is-unfortunately-still-blaming-herself
Bill Cosby Rape Accuser From 2005 Speaks Out & Is Unfortunately Still Blaming Herself

The victim of a rape shouldn’t ever have to feel guilty, especially not Motsinger. She may have been anonymous in 2005, but every one of those 12 women who came forward to claim justice was important. Without them, maybe we wouldn’t even be talking about these accusations today and it would have all been brushed under the rug. Whether Motsinger came forward first or last or never isn’t the point. She’s been brave since the moment she was allegedly raped, because she has found a way to survive

.

So while I was not surprised, I was extremely disappointed that Cosby has stopped doing interviews. An interview at this point would be huge and, one would hope, illuminating. But, if I search deep down, I was also the tiniest bit relieved.

This is a hard thing for a reporter to admit, because getting the story is our undeniable life’s mission. But there’s also something surreal about the thought of talking with a man you watched dole out fatherly advice with your family each week and asking him about accusations of an alleged history of drugging and raping women.

But then, my relief turned to shame. Because why weren’t we asking him about it before?

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/entertainment...jke-rowland/article4165212.html#storylink=cpy
http://www.modbee.com/entertainment/ent-columns-blogs/marijke-rowland/article4165212.html

Language warning applies but he has a point (Tucker Max interview, mostly about other things):

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/26/tucker_max_on_cosby/

There have been a lot of awful narratives about sexual assault in the media lately.

You know what’s ***** up about the Cosby thing? I know one of the reporters who broke one of those women’s stories like 10 years ago and no one **** paid attention! I’ve been calling Cosby a rapist for 10 years and people look at me like I’m the bad dude. What the ****? Hannibal Buress’ skit, go Google “Bill Cosby rapist,” — I have told people that for I don’t even know how long.