Bill Cosby Sued For Defamation By Janice Dickinson Over “Lie” Statement Stemming From Rape Allegations

The statute of limitations has run out on any legal action over the comedian’s alleged 1982 sexual assault of the world’s first supermodel, but Janice Dickinson still is going after Bill Cosby in the courts. In a multi-claim complaint filed today in L.A. Superior Court, the former America’s Next Top Model judge says that The Cosby Show actor has caused her to suffer personally and professionally when he “through an attorney, publicly branded her a liar” when she said late last year that he raped her over 30 years ago.

“Defendant Cosby knows that he drugged and raped Ms. Dickinson,” says the jury-seeking filing submitted

Thursday (read it here). “He knew that calling her rape disclosure a lie was a false statement.” Citing emotional distress, loss of reputation and loss of business over the almost immediate response from Cosby’s Hollywood-heavyweight lawyer Marty Singer, who is not named as a defendant in today’s suit, Dickinson is seeking punitive and other damages and other relief “as the Court deems just and proper.”

“Janice Dickinson’s story accusing Bill Cosby of rape is a lie,” said Singer in the November 19 statement at the heart of today’s filing. The lawyer’s remarks came after Dickinson made the allegations on Entertainment Tonight that week. “There is a glaring contradiction between what she is claiming now for the first time and what she wrote in her own book and what she told the media back in 2002,” he added. “The only story she gave 12 years ago to the media and in her autobiography was that she refused to sleep with Mr. Cosby and he blew her off,” the statement went on to say. “Documentary proof and Ms. Dickinson’s own words show that her new story about something she now claims happened back in 1982 is a fabricated lie.”

Dickinson says that she did mention the incident in an interview with Howard Stern back in 2006, telling the radio host that publisher HarperCollins would not let her write about it in her 2002 autobiography out of fear of being sued. The ex-model also claims in today’s complaint that she tried to get a retraction from Cosby’s camp over the statements from them from last year about her allegations but was “refused” — and that is in part why she had to take today’s action.

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The plaintiff is, of course, far from alone in alleging that Cosby sexually assaulted her. With descriptions of being drugged and other aspects of the incident, her story of what happened in Lake Tahoe in 1982 is very similar to what more than two dozen other women have detailed Cosby did to them over the decades. Cosby has denied the accusations despite NBC pulling the plug on a project with him as more women emerged to tell of incidents and Cosby cancelling dates on his latest comedy tour. He has continued to perform publicly.

Lisa Bloom of L.A.’s The Bloom Firm is representing Dickinson. A familiar presence on Today, MSNBC and more, Bloom is the daughter of Gloria Allred, who is representing several women accusing Cosby of raping them.

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