LOS ANGELES — A former Playboy mannequin who alleges Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her and one other lady at his house in 1969 sued him Thursday beneath a brand new California regulation that suspends the statute of limitations on intercourse abuse claims.
In her lawsuit, Victoria Valentino, 80, says she was an actress and singer 54 years in the past, when she met Cosby, now 85. The comic and actor later approached her at a Los Angeles café, the place he noticed her crying over the current drowning dying of her 6-year-old son.
The Associated Press doesn’t determine individuals who say they’ve been sexually assaulted except they arrive ahead publicly.
Cosby supplied to pay for a spa therapy for Valentino and a buddy, after which despatched a chauffeured automobile to choose the ladies up for dinner. That night at a steakhouse, Cosby gave them every a capsule, she mentioned within the court docket submitting.
“Here! Take this!” the lawsuit alleges Cosby mentioned to them. “It will make you feel better. It will make us ALL feel better.”
Cosby then drove the ladies to his home, the place Valentino handed out on a sofa, and later awakened and witnessed him sexually assaulting her unnamed buddy, in response to the lawsuit. The court docket paperwork allege Cosby then “engaged in forced sexual intercourse” with Valentino whereas she was incapacitated from the drug.
Valentino’s allegations come on the heels of lawsuits final 12 months by six Cosby accusers in New York beneath an analogous provision referred to as a “lookback” regulation that enables adults to file sexual abuse circumstances for allegations that had fallen outdoors the statute of limitations.
The former “Cosby Show” star, who has been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment by no less than 60 girls, has denied all allegations involving intercourse crimes. He was the primary celeb tried and convicted within the #MeToo period — and spent practically three years at a state jail close to Philadelphia earlier than a better court docket threw out the conviction and launched him in 2021.
His spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, mentioned Thursday that Valentino’s lawsuit lacks “any proof or facts” and that so-called lookback legal guidelines violate constitutional rights geared toward defending crime victims and “those that are accused of a crime.”
“What graveyard can Mr. Cosby visit, in order to dig up potential witnesses to testify on his behalf?” Wyatt requested in an announcement. “America is continuing to see that this is a formula to make sure that no more Black Men in America accumulate the American Dream that was secured by Mr. Cosby.”
The lawsuit in LA County Superior Court was filed practically two years after Cosby left jail when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 sexual assault conviction. They discovered he gave incriminating testimony in a deposition in regards to the encounter solely after believing he had immunity from prosecution. The trial choose and an intermediate appeals court docket had discovered no proof of such immunity.
Earlier this 12 months, a Los Angeles jury awarded $500,000 to a lady who mentioned Cosby sexually abused her on the Playboy Mansion when she was an adolescent in 1975.
Seven different accusers obtained a settlement from Cosby’s insurers within the wake of the Pennsylvania conviction over a defamation lawsuit they’d filed in Massachusetts. Their lawsuit mentioned that Cosby and his brokers disparaged them in denying their allegations of abuse.
Valentino’s lawsuit requests a jury trial and seeks unspecified punitive damages.
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