Entertainment
A Complete List of the Women Who Have Accused Bill Cosby of Sexual Assault
In this Nov. 6, 2014 file photo, entertainer Bill Cosby pauses during a news conference. Cosby’s attorney said Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014 that Cosby will not dignify “decade-old, discredited” claims of sexual abuse with a response, the first reaction from the comedian to an increasing uproar over allegations that he sexually assaulted several women in the past. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
(Slate) – The following women have alleged as a matter of public record that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted or raped them. They are listed in the order their allegations became public.
1. Lachele Covington. Covington, an actress who was 20 at the time, filed a police report alleging that Cosby pushed her hand toward his penis after inviting her to his New York home on Jan. 25, 2000 to give her career advice. The New York Postreported that authorities “decided no crime had been committed because until the very moment Covington pulled her hand away, all actions had been consensual.” A Cosby spokesperson called the story “not true.”
2. Andrea Constand. Constand told Ontario police in January 2005 that a year prior, when she was 31, she had visited Cosby at his home in Pennsylvania seeking career advice. (Constand, an Ontario native, worked at the time for Temple University, Cosby’s alma mater.) Constand alleges he gave her “herbal” pills for anxiety, then “touched her breasts and vaginal area, rubbed his penis against her hand, and digitally penetrated” her. The Pennsylvania prosecutor who looked into the case has said that while he didn’t bring charges because the available evidence was not sufficient, he found Constand “credible” and found Cosby “evasive.” After prosecutors declined to charge him, Constand filed a civil suit against Cosby for $150 million; her suit cited, anonymously, 13 other women who alleged that he had sexually assaulted them. (Some of those women, referred to as “Jane Does” in legal language, have since identified themselves publicly and are mentioned below. The identities of Jane Doe witnesses are disclosed to defendants so their testimony can be fairly researched and challenged, but they are not ID’d by name in court or in public records.) Cosby’s attorney called Constand’s claims “utterly preposterous.” The suit was settled for an undisclosed amount in 2006.
