Cosby Charged With Sexual Assault After Alleged Rape Of Some 50 Women In 40 Years


Famous comedian Bill Cosby was charged Wednesday, December 30 with drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004, culminating two years of rape allegations by at least 50 women going back 40 years. Kevin Steele, the newly elected county prosecutor of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, said that a probable cause affidavit filed by investigators alleges Cosby gave Constand a mix of pills and wine that left her unable to consent to sexual activity.

Steele said 78-year-old Cosby was charged “because it was the right thing to do.” After the brief arraignment, Cosby proceeded to the police station in Cheltenham Township, where he was booked, fingerprinted, and photographed. After posting the required 10 percent of his $1 million bail, the television icon was released.

According to CNN, Cosby’s attorneys called what Cosby is charged with “unjustified” and vowed to fight it. His lawyers made the following statement in the wake of his arraignment Wednesday.

“The charge by the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office came as no surprise, filed 12 years after the alleged incident and coming on the heels of a hotly contested election for this county’s DA during which this case was made the focal point. Make no mistake, we intend to mount a vigorous defense against this unjustified charge and we expect that Mr. Cosby will be exonerated by a court of law.”

Los Angeles lawyer Gloria Allred
Gloria Allred, counsel for 29 of the assaulted women [Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, other accusers and victims advocates across the country saw vindication in the Constand case. Gloria Allred, a Los Angeles lawyer who represents 29 women who are providing impetus to get the Cosby Show star charged with sexual misconduct, expressed her opinion.

“Seeing him criminally charged and having to face a trial is the best Christmas present they have ever received.”

In the late 1980s, Jewel Allison was a model and aspiring actress in her late 20s when she met Cosby. In a CNN interview, she recalls that she accepted his invitation to his home where they could discuss how he could help her. When she arrived, she found Cosby waiting with some wine for her to drink. A few sips of wine charged her up, and she felt overcome, later telling CNN that she realized something sexual going on, but she was unable to stop it.

In November 21, 2014, People Magazine related how Beth Ferrier, 56, met Cosby in Denver in the mid-1980s. He mentored her for a time, but one night, she said, he gave her a cappuccino laced with something that caused her to wake up in her car in the parking lot with her clothes all a mess, her bra unhooked, not knowing exactly what had happened. They later conducted an “on-and-off consensual affair” that lasted several years because he kept luring her in and she felt like she couldn’t say no.

Supermodel Janice Dickinson, 60, told ET in a 2014 interview that the comedian had sexually assaulted her in 1982. After dinner together, he gave her a glass of red wine and a pill she’d asked for because of menstrual pains. The last thing she remembered was Bill Cosby dropping his patchwork robe and getting on top of her. She also remembered a lot of pain and waking up the next morning with her pajamas off and semen in between her legs.

Impact Award for Cosby Show
Impact Award for The Cosby Show during its heyday [Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images]

Florida nurse Therese Serignese, 58, told ABC’s 20/20 that she was a 19-year-old model visiting Cosby in a private dressing room after a 1976 Las Vegas performance when he persuaded her to take some pills. She then experienced a drugged feeling while he had sex with her.

Cindra Ladd, 67, wife of Oscar-winning film producer Alan Ladd Jr., told the Huffington Post that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1969 when she was a single 21-year-old. She still recalls herself waking up naked in the bed of his friend’s apartment the morning after Cosby’s pill treatment and seeing him casual in a white terrycloth bathrobe. Although it was obvious to her that they’d had sex, she attempted some awkward small talk and got out of there as fast as she could. It never occurred to her to get Cosby charged because it was a different time when “date rape” didn’t exist.

[Photo by William Thomas Cain/Getty Images]

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