Comedian Bill Cosby sued model Beverly
Johnson on Monday, saying she defamed him by accusing him of drugging her, and
making her the eighth accuser he has filed suit against this month.
Johnson is among more than 50 women who
have come forward in the past year with claims that Cosby had drugged, and in
numerous cases, sexually assaulted them in incidents dating back decades.
Cosby's suit charges that Johnson, a
leading model in the 1970s and '80s and one of his most high-profile accusers,
defamed him and intentionally inflicted emotional distress. He is demanding a
jury trial, court documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court showed.
Cosby representative Monique Pressley said
in a statement that "Mr. Cosby states that he never drugged defendant and
her story is a lie."
Cosby, 78, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing
and has never been criminally charged. Many of the alleged incidents occurred
decades ago and the statute of limitations for prosecuting them expired long
ago.
Last week, Cosby filed a lawsuit in
Massachusetts, suing seven of the accusers for defamation. The seven women had
filed suit against Cosby last December accusing him of assault, libel and
slander.
Johnson, 63, wrote a detailed article in
Vanity Fair in November 2014 about her encounter with Cosby in the mid-1980s,
saying she was invited by the comedian, best known for his role in the 1980s
sitcom "The Cosby Show," to his home where he allegedly drugged her
coffee.
"In cases of rape and abuse, abusers
will do whatever they can to intimidate and weaken their victims to force them
to stop fighting," Johnson said in a statement.
She later gave interviews to news programs
including ABC's "Good Morning America" and "Nightline"
reiterating her claims.
Cosby's lawsuit says he had never spent any
time alone with Johnson at his home. The comedian asked for an injunction
requiring Johnson to retract her public statements and remove a chapter on him
from her memoir.
The wave of allegations against Cosby have
scuttled the comedian's acting projects and live shows in the past year.
Court documents unsealed in July showed
that Cosby testified in a 2005 deposition that he had obtained Quaaludes pills
with the intent of giving the sedatives to young women in order to have sex
with them.
The admission during testimony in a civil
case brought by a former Temple University employee, Andrea Constand, who
alleged that Cosby tricked her into taking drugs before he sexually assaulted
her. That case was settled for an undisclosed sum in 2006.
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