Bill Cosby sued by 9 other women in Nevada

LAS VEGAS –

Nine other women are accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault in a lawsuit alleging that he used his “vast power, fame and prestige” to victimize them.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Nevada alleges that the women were individually drugged and assaulted in homes, locker rooms and hotels in Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe between approximately 1979 and 1992.

A woman alleges that Cosby, claiming to be her acting mentor, lured her from New York to Nevada, where he drugged her in a hotel room with what he claimed was non-alcoholic sparkling cider, then raped her.

The 85-year-old former ‘Cosby Show’ star has now been accused of rape, assault and sexual harassment by more than 60 women. He has denied all allegations of sex crimes. He was the first celebrity to be tried and convicted in the #MeToo era — and spent nearly three years in a state prison near Philadelphia before a higher court overturned the conviction and released him in 2021.

Earlier this year, a Los Angeles jury awarded $500,000 to a woman who said Cosby sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion when she was 16 in 1975.

The Nevada lawsuit came just weeks after Governor Joe Lombardo signed into law a bill that removed a two-year deadline for adults to file sexual assault cases. Similar lawsuits have followed other “lookback laws” in other states.

One of the plaintiffs, Lise-Lotte Lublin, a Nevada native, had argued for the change. She had previously alleged that Cosby gave her spiked drinks and raped her in a Las Vegas hotel in 1989.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly.

“For years I have fought for survivors of sexual assault and today I will be able to fight for myself for the first time,” Lotte-Lublin said in a statement quoted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “With the new law change, I now have the opportunity to take my attacker Bill Cosby to court. My journey has just begun, but I am grateful for this opportunity to find justice.”

In California, a former Playboy model who alleges Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her and another woman in his home in 1969 sued him on June 1 under a new California law that suspends the statute of limitations for sexual assault claims.

Cosby publicist Andrew Wyatt condemned such laws in a statement Wednesday.

“Mr. Cosby is a citizen of this United States, but these judges and legislators consistently allow these civil suits to overwhelm their records — knowing that these women are not fighting for victims — but for their addiction to massive amounts of media attention and greed.” ,” Wyatt said.

“As of today, we will no longer allow these women to present various accounts of an alleged allegation against Mr. Cosby without vetting them in public opinion court and in court,” Wyatt said.

In the latest lawsuit, the women allege Cosby “used his immense power, fame and prestige, claiming he wanted to help them and/or their careers as a pretext to isolate and sexually assault them.”