- Bill Cosby was accused by five women of sexual abuse in a new lawsuit filed on Monday.
- The suit accuses him of assault, battery, infliction of emotional distress, and false imprisonment.
Bill Cosby faces new accusations of sexual assault and battery from five women under New York's Adult Survivors Act, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday.
The lawsuit, which was filed in New York state court by Lili Bernard, Eden Tirl, Jewel Gittens, Jennifer Thompson, and Cinda Ladd, accuses Cosby of assault, battery, infliction of emotional distress, and false imprisonment in encounters that go back decades and seeks unspecified damages.
The suit also lists NBCUniversal Media, Kaufman Astoria Studios, and The Carsey-Werner Company, which ran "The Cosby Show" from 1984 to 1992, as defendants, accusing them of "negligence." Representatives for the three companies did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
"Each plaintiff was sexually assaulted and battered by defendant Bill Cosby in the same or similar manner when he used his power, fame, and prestige, including the power, fame, and prestige given to him by defendants NBCUniversal Media, LLC, Kaufman Astoria Studios, Inc., and The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC, to misuse his enormous power in such a nefarious, horrific way," the complaint reads.
According to the lawsuit, Cosby drugged and raped Bernard in New Jersey and Nevada in 1990, as well as in Manhattan in 1991. Tirl accuses the actor of inappropriately touching her without her consent in 1989 in his dressing room. Gittens alleges Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in Manhattan in either 1989 or 1990, while Thompson alleges Cosby inappropriately touched her in Manhattan in 1988. And Ladd accused Cosby of drugging and raping her in 1969.
The lawsuit was filed under New York's Adult Survivors Act, which went into effect in late November. The law suspends the statute of limitations on select sex crimes, allowing plaintiffs a one-year window, regardless of when the alleged offense occurred.
More than 50 women came forward in 2014 with similar allegations going as far back as the 1960s accusing Cosby of drugging them, assaulting them, and pressuring them to remain silent.
Cosby was charged in 2015 with the sexual assault of Andrea Constand and eventually convicted in 2018 in the first major trial of the #MeToo movement. He was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison but released in 2021 when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction, stating his due process rights were violated.
Then, a Los Angeles jury found Cosby liable this June in a civil case brought by Judy Huth, a woman who said he sexually assaulted her as a teenager at the Playboy Mansion in 1975.
Cosby's representative and the plaintiff's attorney did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment. Cosby's longtime spokesman Andrew Wyatt told Deadline that Cosby "continues to vehemently deny all allegation waged against him and looks forward to defending himself in court."