Janice Dickinson sat down with one of the prosecutors in Bill Cosby‘s sexual assault case the week of March 19, a source close to the situation tells Us Weekly exclusively.
The prosecutor “flew to Los Angeles from Pennsylvania last week to personally question and interview Janice Dickinson to determine if she should be called to the witness stand as one of the five women that the judge said could testify,” the source reveals.
“It was extremely traumatic for Janice, and emotional,” the source adds. The 63-year-old model was one of the first of dozens of women to accuse the disgraced comedian of sexual assault. Dickinson alleges that Cosby, now 80, raped her in a hotel room in 1982. His lawyer at the time called her claims a “fabricated lie.”
“I was drugged and raped by Bill Cosby,” she said in a 2015 interview with Entertainment Tonight after filing a defamation suit against the star. “The fact that he and his spokespeople have called me a liar … referring to remarks that I’ve made … that’s not correct. I want to fight.”
According to the source, at the end of the prosecutor’s interview with Dickinson, “it was determined that the jury should hear what she has to say as one of the alleged prior bad acts committed by Mr. Cosby.”
The model’s attorney Lisa Bloom tells Us Weekly in a statement: “If the prosecution chooses to call Janice Dickinson as one of the five ‘prior bad acts’ witnesses, she is ready, willing and able to testify truthfully about her experience. After three years of litigating and winning against Bill Cosby, I remain proud to represent Janice, and if she is called, I will accompany her to Pennsylvania to lend my support before, during and after her testimony.”
The comedian’s retrial for allegedly drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004 is scheduled to begin next week in Pennsylvania. A judge had declared a mistrial in June 2017 after the jury deliberated for more than 50 hours over six days. They eventually told the judge that there was a “hopeless deadlock that cannot be resolved on further deliberations.” He had been charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault and had pleaded not guilty.
With reporting by Jen Heger.
