Before the state's two-year window for filing older sexual assault allegations closes, a major Bill Cosby accuser has filed suit against the actor on Thursday for a 1990 hotel room encounter in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The Associated Press said that Lili Bernard, a Los Angeles artist, was motivated in part by Bill Cosby's recent release from jail.
Cosby had already completed more than two years of a possible 10-year sentence.
Cosby, 84, has been a free man since the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed his 2018 sexual assault conviction in another case on technical grounds in June.
Bernard, 57, claims that after offering to mentor her on his top-rated TV program, Cosby drugged and raped her in a hotel room. Bernard was 26 years old at the time.
The two-year window in which New Jersey residents can bring sexual assault cases that would otherwise be considered too old to prosecute expires next month.
"The release of Bill Cosby retraumatized and horrified me. I was terrified for any woman or girl who happened to come into contact with him," AP quoted Bernard as saying.
I was terrified for any woman or girl who happened to come into contact with him," AP quoted Bernard as saying. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has allowed a predator back on the streets," she said.
Although Cosby had been classified by the Pennsylvania trial judge as a sexually violent predator, that definition became moot when Cosby's conviction was overturned, which freed him from any reporting requirements.
According to Andrew Wyatt, Cosby's representative, the so-called "look-back" windows, such as the one approved in New Jersey, infringe on a person's due process rights.
"The move is yet another example of people abusing the legal process by presenting a flood of claims from people who have never presented a shred of evidence," Wyatt said.
If his conviction in their case is overturned, prosecutors in suburban Philadelphia will have to determine whether or not to appeal to the United States Supreme Court in the near future.
Cosby was found guilty of sexually assaulting Temple University athletics supervisor Andrea Constand at his residence in January 2004 after she was rendered unconscious by three blue pills.
