LOS ANGELES >> A former Playboy mannequin who alleges Invoice Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her and one other lady at his dwelling in 1969 sued him Thursday underneath 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 latest drowning demise of her 6-year-old son.
The Related Press doesn’t establish 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 select the ladies up for dinner. That night at a steakhouse, Cosby gave them every a capsule, she stated within the courtroom submitting.
“Right here! Take this!” the lawsuit alleges Cosby stated to them. “It’s going to make you are feeling higher. It’s going to make us ALL really feel higher.”
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, based on the lawsuit. The courtroom paperwork allege Cosby then “engaged in pressured sexual activity” with Valentino whereas she was incapacitated from the drug.
Valentino’s allegations come on the heels of lawsuits final yr by six Cosby accusers in New York underneath an analogous provision generally known as a “lookback” regulation that permits adults to file sexual abuse instances for allegations that had fallen exterior the statute of limitations.
The previous “Cosby Present” star, who has been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment by no less than 60 ladies, has denied all allegations involving intercourse crimes. He was the primary celeb tried and convicted within the #MeToo period — and spent almost three years at a state jail close to Philadelphia earlier than the next courtroom threw out the conviction and launched him in 2021.
His spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, stated Thursday that Valentino’s lawsuit lacks “any proof or information” and that so-called lookback legal guidelines violate constitutional rights aimed toward defending crime victims and “these which might be accused of a criminal offense.”
“What graveyard can Mr. Cosby go to, in an effort to dig up potential witnesses to testify on his behalf?” Wyatt requested in a press release. “America is constant to see that it is a method to ensure that no extra Black Males in America accumulate the American Dream that was secured by Mr. Cosby.”
The lawsuit in LA County Superior Court docket was filed almost two years after Cosby left jail when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court docket 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 courtroom had discovered no proof of such immunity.
Earlier this yr, a Los Angeles jury awarded $500,000 to a girl who stated Cosby sexually abused her on the Playboy Mansion when she was an adolescent in 1975.
Seven different accusers acquired a settlement from Cosby’s insurers within the wake of the Pennsylvania conviction over a defamation lawsuit that they had filed in Massachusetts. Their lawsuit stated 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.
