Cosby demands money back from accuser in sexual-assault case

Just one day before a pretrial hearing in a criminal sexual assault case against him in Philadelphia earlier this month, Bill Cosby filed a lawsuit against his accuser and the lawyers who have represented her for more than a decade.

Constand, when she was an employee in Temple University’s basketball program in 2004, visited Cosby’s Cheltenham Township home, where she says he put drugs in her wine, leaving her helpless to fight off a sexual assault.

Constand and her mother met with police past year as police reopened the case and ultimately arrested Cosby. Cosby said that violates the confidentiality agreement she signed to not talk about the case. The mother of Constand as well as the publisher of the National Enquirer were also included in Cosby’s countersuit, according to Fox News.

As part of the renewed investigation Miss Constand and her mother were interviewed and files were obtained from her lawyers.

The decision, Castor said, was made to create an atmosphere that would induce Cosby to testify in Constand’s civil litigation against him and allow Constand to prevail civilly and “make a lot of money”. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison.

She filed a civil suit against him in 2005, which was settled confidentially a year later.

“Defendants are blatantly violating their confidentiality obligations under the 2006 Confidential Settlement Agreement”, his attorneys wrote, “including by intentionally disclosing information they promised to keep confidential as consideration for the settlement”.

Constand and her attorneys, Dolores Troiani and Bebe Kivitz, were named in the records.

“Mr. Cosby has apparently decided his best legal defense is to sue one of his alleged victims and The National Enquirer, a publication that has been unflinching in its coverage of allegations against Mr. Cosby beginning in 2000 when everyone else avoided the story”, the statement read.

Cosby’s legal team did not respond to a request for comment about his new lawsuit.

Cosby built his career on a family-friendly image, playing Dr Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show from 1984 to 1992.

Dozens of other women in recent years have come forward and accused Cosby of sexual impropriety spanning decades. That case will likely go to trial, after a judge denied Cosby’s attempt to dismiss the case.

Troiani declined to comment Thursday on behalf of herself or Constand. That decision not to prosecute, Castor implied, removed from Cosby the ability to claim his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, thus forcing him to sit for a deposition under oath in the civil case over the course of four days between September 2005 and March 2006.