Throw enough mud against a wall and some of it is bound to stick. For more than a decade, American comedian and actor Bill Cosby has faced a string of sexual assault allegations from a series of women in the United States and Canada. While the locations and allegations vary, the common thread is that the 78-year-old actor drugged them before engaging in sexual activity with the victims.
Up to 50 women have come forward to say they were assaulted in such a manner over a 20-year period. While police have investigated the claims, nothing has stuck to Cosby — until last Wednesday, that is.
The black comedian — once considered to be America’s “favourite father”, because of his role as Dr Huxtable in the 1980’s prime-time hit The Cosby Show — was charged by police near Philadelphia with three counts of sexual assault on an Ontario woman dating — now that isn’t a bad pun — back to 2004.
At the time, Andrea Constand was a massage therapist working for the basketball team at Cosby’s alma mater, Temple University. The charges claim that she was sexually assaulted between January and February, 2004.
Here’s the thing about throwing mud: Cosby is very good at it — and some of his claims against the women complainants have stuck.
Lest Gulf News be the object of a mud pie thrown its way by Cosby and his legal representatives, let us duly note that Cosby has only been charged and his guilt or innocence has yet to be proven in a court of law. He was released by the Pennsylvania court on Wednesday after posting a $1 million (Dh3.67 million) bail bond.
The actor, who was the top-grossing television comic star from the mid 1980s to 1990s, is a man of considerable resources. And as shown all-to-often in the US legal system, all are not created equally: The bigger your bankroll, the better your defence — and offensive capabilities.
Over the past decade, Cosby has initiated counter-suits against the women who made the sexual assault claims against him. A group of seven, who filed a joint civil suit against him in Illinois, were countersued by Cosby in federal court. The language used by the actor in the suit says that the allegations of sexual assault, while the women were in a drug-induced state of unconsciousness, are “malicious, opportunistic and false”, and Cosby is seeking monetary damages “to the maximum extent permitted by law”.
Barrage of police questioning
Consider yourself a woman of limited means, a victim of a sexual assault, your body violated without your consent and then having to face the ignominy of registering a complaint with the police. When nothing comes of that complaint, you live with feelings of guilt, despair, anger, humiliation. Do you fight on? Yes, if you have the courage of your convictions to believe that the perpetrator should be brought to justice — regardless of who that perpetrator is.
For the women who have dared to come forward, they have faced a barrage of police questioning — and no criminal charges. And then when they’ve filed civil suits in an attempt to claim legal recourse, they have been met with aggressive counter-suits.
Of course Cosby has every right to take legal steps to protect his reputation and interests — and he has acted within his own legal rights to do so. That’s why he has also settled some of the civil suits against him out of court, in sealed agreements that have strict confidentiality terms. And again, that’s his legal right to do so.
This time around, though, Cosby’s case is in the public domain. For all of the ugliness about the United States legal system, there is a beauty in that it is open, transparent and can, in all but the most extreme instances, be reported on fully. He cannot hide behind a shield of litigation and a phalanx of litigators.
When Cosby was at the height of his prime-time popularity, another African-American was also the star of daytime viewing. The O.J. Simpson trial lasted months, made for riveting viewing and, ultimately, the glove didn’t fit and the jury acquitted the footballer of murder.
True, he later lost a civil suit in the wrongful death case and was jailed for kidnapping a sports memorabilia collector in a hotel room in Las Vegas, but the initial murder trial showed that money buys the best defence. There should be no reason to expect anything less from Cosby — as is his right.
But what of his accuser? Constand made the initial complaint to Durham Regional Police, a force in suburban Toronto, in the spring of 2004. That initial investigation came to nothing — and one can only reasonably presume because it is one word against another with no physical evidence, such as a stained blue dress, as kept by Monica Lewinsky, for instance.
Clearly, state attorneys in Pennsylvania believe there is a case for Cosby to answer. Those state attorneys will be seeking to have as much similar-pattern testimony entered into evidence — and many of those 50 or so women who have cried rape may get their day in open court. The symbolic statue of Justice holding scales being blind — lest she get mud in the eye.
