A lawyer for Bill Cosby has criticised the media for reporting the “absurd” allegations made by women claiming to have been sexually assaulted by the comedian.
Martin Singer, in a statement released on Friday, said news organisations should stop vilifying the star and described claims made by accusers as “fantastical”.
A statement issued on Friday by Cosby's lawyer, Martin Singer, in response to allegations of sexual assault against the comic:
"The new, never-before-heard claims from women who have come forward in the past two weeks with unsubstantiated, fantastical stories about things they say occurred 30, 40, or even 50 years ago have escalated far past the point of absurdity.
“These brand new claims about alleged decades-old events are becoming increasingly ridiculous, and it is completely illogical that so many people would have said nothing, done nothing, and made no reports to law enforcement or asserted civil claims if they thought they had been assaulted over a span of so many years."
Some of the women accusing Cosby are going public again after initially coming forward around 2005, when Andrea Constand filed a civil suit alleging that she was sexually assaulted by him.
Another woman, Joan Tarshis, decided to tell her story publicly for the first time on Monday.
Now 66, Ms Tarshis said Cosby gave her drug-laced drinks twice in 1969, forcing her to perform a sex act the first time and raping her the second time.
She said she told no one about this for decades, and only decided to go public when she read a Nov. 13 column in The Washington Post by Barbara Bowman, who alleges she was drugged and raped by Cosby when she was 17.
The Pennsylvania woman's lawyer said other women were prepared to make similar claims, but the case was settled before trial.
As Cosby's stand-up tour crumbled with shows canceled in six states, the embattled entertainer took to the stage on Friday in Florida to a standing ovation from a sold-out crowd.
Performances in Oklahoma, Nevada, Illinois, Arizona, South Carolina and Washington State, though, were called off as more women come forward accusing the entertainer of sexually assaulting them many years ago.
“Lawsuits are filed against people in the public eye every day.” the statement said. “There has never been a shortage of lawyers willing to represent people with claims against rich, powerful men, so it makes no sense that not one of these new women who just came forward for the first time now ever asserted a legal claim back at the time they allege they had been sexually assaulted.
“This situation is an unprecedented example of the media's breakneck rush to run stories without any corroboration or adherence to traditional journalistic standards. Over and over again, we have refuted these new unsubstantiated stories with documentary evidence, only to have a new uncorroborated story crop up out of the woodwork. When will it end?
“It is long pasttime for this media vilification of Mr Cosby to stop."
0 comments:
Post a Comment