Discussion for article #230370
Methinks he doth protest too little and then works on controlling the media response.
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He is a very unhappy looking comedian.
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I think he’s aware that “no comment” always looks like some sort of comment.
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This is a casting couch story. Go with it and your career gets going. Resist and you are left with nothing. Bill Cosby was doing what was and continues to be done to young women (and vulnerable men too) trying for a career in the arts. The biggest difference, is that Cosby didn’t just threaten and manipulate, he drugged them into submission. Being around the art and film business, I’ve known many people who have slept their way to success, but we do not usually hear from the ones that refused advances because they end up living their lives in obscurity. I have never publicly called out any of the offenders I have personally known and I am not sure what good it would do now, but I bet this wave of women coming forward about Cosby will bring others forward about many of our society’s sacred cows.
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Quite Bushian in his efforts to schmooze and manipulate the reporter…notice Camille just sat there frozen and didn’t breathe a word.
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Where were Bill’s handlers? One to disrupt the reporter, another to distract the videographer, and a third to snag the memory card from the camera.
His poor wife
What a perversion of the word he kept using, “integrity”. Cosby’s trying to intimidate the interviewer, threatening him that his career will be ruined, that he won’t be considered a “serious” interviewer if he brings up the subject of Cosby’s reputation as a casting-couch rapist. It’s probably the same threat that he made toward his rape victims when they tried to talk to him about what he’d done to them.
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I’m sure that’s true. But still it probably comes down to he-said/she-said. And it would take a very strong woman and prosecutor to take someone down that road, let alone someone with Cosby’s resources.
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There’s no question that prosecutors and cops have been dropping the ball on this type of sexual assault for years and years. You can imagine how, after “getting away with it” on numerous occasions, a rapist might actually believe he didn’t rape anybody.
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She could divorce & leave with half of his net worth if she wanted to. She is there of her own volition.
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The only case, so far as I can tell, to get a police investigation, involved such an investigation a year after the alleged incident.
Andrea Constand sued Cosby when the Philadelphia DA declined to prosecute on “lack of evidence.” The alleged rape was in January, 2004. The decision not to prosecute came in February, 2005. I don’t know when she went to the police, but it doesn’t sound like it was within 60 days.
Some of the allegations go back to events that supposedly occurred in 1969. The latest allegation dates the event in 1982. There was another allegation of an event sometime in the '70’s. That allegation was made public in 2005.
Little late to be getting blood work done.
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Except the “dozen women” number is almost mythological, at this point.
Name them. And what are their stories?
I can name 5, two of which were supposedly the “Jane Doe” witnesses in the Constand civil suit, where the “12” number comes from. She said she had 12 Jane Doe witnesses ready to testify about similar assaults.
No one ever testified in court; that case settled. Two of those women later said they were among the 12 witnesses. One other woman made her accusations in 2005, and two more this month. That’s six, including Constand.
The rest of the “witnesses” have remained silent and anonymous.
This is what comes of trying serious charges of serious crimes in a public forum, rather than a court of law.
What’s to be mystified about? It means what it says, there’s not enough evidence to proceed. People are upset with Cosby over 30 - 50 year old accusations that have no evidence to support them.
“Poor Wife” this crap was 30-50 years ago. She knows all about it. It doesn’t seem to have bothered her much then or now.
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Yes, but it is a really huge difference. The “casting couch” is sleazy, but it isn’t necessarily criminal. Consent is possible in that scenario, depending on the level of coercion–I’m sure that while some actors are bullied into it, others may welcome the quid pro quo. What is alleged to have happened multiple times here is drug facilitated, impaired and forcible rape. The “casting couch” here is simply bait and switch, with the opportunity for consent denied.
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It may take a strong woman, but it would not require a strong prosecutor. In 1960-70 a black man accused of raping a white woman in the US would have been murdered on the town square if there was a shred of evidence, even if he was Bill Cosby. This would have been an easy home run and a ticket to higher political office for a prosecutor.
Or perhaps he didn’t rape them. That, too, would explain the lack of evidence.
You have no understanding of the dynamics of wealth, power, influence work if you don’t think they trump those of race in this situation. Bill Cosby, especially in the 60’s and 70’s, was an American icon and media mogul.
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Sexual predators choose and groom their victims carefully. They try to find vulnerable candidates to victimize. Cosby, if he did rape some, most or all of these women and girls, almost certainly chose them at least in part because he felt they could be intimidated into silence.
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