The sexual assault case in Pennsylvania against Bill Cosby will go forward, a judge in Montgomery County ruled Wednesday.
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Bill Cosby filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit on Wednesday against a woman who accused him of drugging and raping her in 2004 while she was an Employee at Temple University in Philadelphia.
However, the defendants were all subject to confidentiality clauses that covered the settlement of lawsuits that Constand filed against Cosby and the tabloid, published by Boca Raton, Florida-based American Media Inc., in 2005.
The lawsuit, filed a day before a key hearing in the criminal case against Cosby, names accuser Andrea Constand, her lawyer, her mother and the publisher of the National Enquirer.
Cosby’s attorney declined to comment on the lawsuit, as did Troiani.
Cosby was arrested in December just days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired.
Cosby has filed an appeal to that decision, but District Attorney Kevin Steele does not believe the appeal has merit.
The New York Times reported that in a 2005 deposition in Constand’s civil case, Cosby said he agreed to give the National Enquirer an exclusive interview about her accusations after it promised to scrap an article about a second woman’s claims. Troiani mentioned at the hearing that Cosby had sued her but did not elaborate.
In January, Cosby’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the indecent assault charge amid allegations a prosecutor broke a promise not to press charges over his alleged encounter with Constand, arguing the prosecutor filed the new sexual assault charge against Cosby partly because of the statements he made in that deposition. “But its filing underscores the contentious legal fight on the sidelines of the criminal case between lawyers for the 78-year-old entertainer and those who might provide evidence against him”, the Inquirer reports. These seven women, whose accusations are too old to prosecute, sued Cosby in federal court in MA (where he has a home) in late 2014, claiming he defamed them by denying their accusations. Cosby’s law team did not comment on the specifics of the allegations. Constand agreed to a civil settlement with Cosby. He faces 10-years in prison if convicted.
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Prosecutors in Los Angeles County last month decided not to charge Cosby over two alleged cases of sexual assault dating to 1965 and 2008.
