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Bill Cosby is fighting back against seven of the women who accused him of sexual assault or misconduct. On Monday, December 14, the actor filed a defamation lawsuit against Tamara Green, Therese Serignese, Linda Traitz, Louisa Moritz, Barbara Bowman, Joan Tarshis, and Angela Leslie for “their malicious, opportunistic, false, and defamatory accusations of sexual misconduct against him.”
Cosby’s lawyer Monique Pressley said in a press release that the comedian, 78, is asking the court for relief from the women’s “intentional campaign to assassinate his character for their own financial gain.” She added that he has suffered great emotional distress and “substantial injuries” to both his reputation and business contracts.
Moritz, Bowman, Tarshis, and Leslie joined Green, Serignese and Traitz in a lawsuit that Green originally filed against Cosby last December in Massachusetts. They are among dozens of women who have accused the Cosby Show alum of drugging and sexually assaulting them, dating as far back as the mid-1960s.
“Mr. Cosby states plainly that he neither drugged nor sexually assaulted the defendants,” Pressley said.
The seven women's lawyer, Joseph Cammarata, released a statement in reply to Cosby's countersuit on Monday, noting he wasn't surprised by the actor's countersuit.
"If anyone is surprised by Cosby's actions today, they shouldn't be. He's taken a page out of the defense attorney's playbook in an effort to shift the focus of this legitimate inquiry," he said. "It is curious that he has filed a claim only against these seven women, when there are scores of other women who have made similar allegations of sexual abuse and assault against Mr. Cosby. My clients remain resolute in their desire to have their day in court, sooner rather than later, and they each expect that their good name and reputation will be restored."
Earlier Monday, the Board of Trustees at Boston University revoked Cosby’s honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, stating that “his treatment of women has brought significant and lasting discredit upon himself and is inconsistent with the University’s mission and values.”
