Bill Cosby is about to face legal troubles once more as it relates to accusations of sexual assault.
After previously claiming that she was one of Cosby’s many alleged sexual assault victims, actress Lili Bernard filed a lawsuit against him on Thursday. Similar to her claims in 2015 when she first made these accusations against him, Bernard says she was drugged and raped by Cosby in 1990.
Bernard says she met Cosby on the set of his famed show “The Cosby Show” and he took on a role to be her mentor. She was playing the role of Mrs. Minifield, a heavily pregnant woman who pestered Dr. Cosby with questions about pregnancy.
She said he “violently” “grabbed and squeezed” her breasts during an exercise in vocal projection. Bernard said that it was August 1990 when Cosby raped her at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in New Jersey. She said he deceived her by telling her he was going to introduce her to a producer to help with her career and instead took advantage of her.
Bernard spoke about this very same incident in 2015 on CNN when she responded to Whoopi Goldberg coming to Cosby’s defense on “The View” that same year. Graphically detailing the incident, she said, “He surreptitiously, clandestinely slipped drugs into my blood and he raped me. It was very traumatic. Because he incapacitated me, I was not even able to push the pillow away from my face that he was using the silence my screams. He was suffocating me while he was raping me.”
Continuing on she said, “When he finally lifted the pillow and I could finally gasp for air,” she went on, “I could not even wipe away the tears trickling down my temples that were welling in my ears. This is no bull. This is what I experienced.”
Responding to Bernard’s lawsuit filed Thursday, Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt said, “Mr. Cosby continues to maintain steadfast in his innocence and will vigorously fight ANY alleged allegations waged against him and is willing and able to take this fight to the highest court in these United States of America.”
“Also, back on July 1, 2015, the New Jersey Prosecutor terminated the investigation against Mr. Cosby and decided not to move forward with Lili Bernard’s claims. She was represented by Gloria Allred at the time,” said Wyatt. He added that Bernard’s claims at the time were
far beyond the statute of limitations.”
Cosby was serving his third year in his three to 10-year sentence for sexual assault when he was released this summer. His conviction was overturned after it was found that a previous agreement with the former prosecutor of the case was not supposed to be used to convict him.
Cosby is 84.
