Bill Cosby & NBCUniversal Hit With Sexual Assault Suit From Ex-‘Cosby Show’ Actresses & Others

deadline.com:

Detailing eerily familiar alleged modus operandi on the part of the man once known as “America’s Dad,” two former The Cosby Show actresses and three other women on Tuesday sued Bill Cosby and NBCUniversal for sexual assault and battery in New York state court. “Plaintiffs were all sexually battered, assaulted, and abused by Bill Cosby as a part of the same conduct, occurrence, plan, or scheme that was perpetrated, conducted, organized, and/or performed in New York and other states by Bill Cosby and his associates and enablers,” claims the complaint from Lili Bernard and Eden Tirl, Jewel Gittens, Jennifer Thompson and Cindra Ladd, citing the once-incarcerated comedian repeatedly using his “enormous power in such a nefarious, horrific way.” Adds the 34-page filing by attorneys Jordan Merson and Jordan Rutsky in the Empire State’s Supreme Court: “Over the course of several decades, Bill Cosby engaged in the serial sexual assault of dozens of women for his sexual gratification while the co-defendants enabled and aided these sexual assaults to benefit financially by their association with Bill Cosby.” (Read the complaint here.) Naming the Comcast-owned media giant, plus Kaufman Astoria Studios and The Carsey-Werner Company as co-defendants for “negligence,” the suit seeks a variety of unspecified damages. “Defendants NBCUniversal Media, LLC, Kaufman Astoria Studios, Inc., and The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC are also culpable and liable because they knew and/or should have known that Bill Cosby was sexually abusing, assaulting, and/or battering women, including on their premises, but did nothing to stop it,” the document says of the companies involved in the production of The Cosby Show, which ran from 1984-1992.