Several women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual abuse in the past filed a new lawsuit Wednesday asking for a jury trial against the comedian in Nevada, where a new state law recently took effect that eliminates the statutes of limitations for many sexual assault cases.
The lawsuit was filed by nine women in the US District Court of Nevada, and the plaintiffs all say they allegedly were given either pills or tainted drinks by Cosby during encounters in Nevada and were sexually assaulted while drugged. The lawsuit says the encounters happened from approximately 1979 to 1992.
"Defendant Cosby drugged or attempted to drug each of these women before sexually assaulting them," the complaint says.
The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit are Lise Lotte-Lublin, Lili Bernard, Janice Baker-Kinney, Rebecca Cooper, Janice Dickinson, Linda Kirkpatrick, Angela Leslie, Pam Joy Abeyta and Heidi Thomas.
Dickinson, a TV star and supermodel, was among several plaintiffs named in the suit who testified against Cosby in his 2018 criminal trial in Pennsylvania.
A jury found Cosby guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault on Andrea Constand in 2018, but the conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2021. The state's high court found that the prosecution of Cosby violated an agreement he had made to ensure his testimony in a separate civil case.
The Nevada complaint also alleges "Cosby used his enormous power, fame, and prestige," to isolate and sexually assault the women named in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed just weeks after the new state law took effect, eliminating the statute of limitations for most sexual assault cases. Cosby is also facing lawsuits in other states that have recently passed similar lookback laws including New York and California.
Cosby's publicist, Andrew Wyatt, cited those laws and questioned the accusers' motives in a statement responding to the new lawsuit Wednesday.
"From this day forward, we will not continue to allow these women to parade various accounts of an alleged allegation against Mr. Cosby anymore without vetting them in the court of public opinion and inside of the courtroom," said Wyatt.
