Bill Cosby sues model Beverly Johnson for defamation

Referencing a complaint filed by Cosby’s lawyers in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday (Dec. 21), TheWrap reports that false allegations the lawyers said Johnson made about Cosby drugging and attempting to have sex with her are an attempt by her to “thrust herself back into the spotlight”.

Kontos said at the October news conference announcing her lawsuit that Hill finally came forward previous year because she was “emboldened” after other women began renewing similar allegations against Cosby.

Cosby, 78, filed a countersuit on December 14 against the women earlier this week, accusing them of making false allegations of sexual misconduct for financial gain.

Since late 2014, more than 50 women – most of whom have not sued – have accused the comedian of sexual abuse dating back decades.

“Opinion, as a matter of law, is constitutionally protected and can not support a plaintiff’s defamation claim”, the request says.

Cosby representative Monique Pressley said in a statement that “Mr. Cosby states that he never drugged defendant and her story is a lie”.

“Under well-founded precedent, statements of opinion, even if capable of causing embarrassment, can never serve as the basis for causes of action for defamation, false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress”, read the court papers, which were filed on Friday (18Dec15).

“I am aware of the statements from Bill Cosby”, Johnson said in a statement to People magazine.

“I knew by the second sip of the drink Cosby had given me that I’d been drugged – and drugged good”, she wrote in the essay. The women’s lawyer called Cosby’s lawsuit “a standard defense attorney’s play”. The 66-year-old McKee self-filed her lawsuit Mon.in Springfield, Massachusetts federal courtroom.

The lawsuit also seeks the removal of the chapter on Cosby from future distribution of Johnson’s memoir and demands that unsold copies of the memoir with the chapter on Cosby be removed from circulation.

Johnson, the lawsuit states, has published her allegations in articles, interviews, television appearances and in her recent memoir, “The Face That Changed It All”.

Hill appeared in the “Picture Pages” educational videos with Cosby in the 1980s when she was a teenager.

The Cosby motion says Hill’s complaint doesn’t meet the bar for defamation and notes that the three media comments mention Hill by name.