DOWNFALL OF BILL CROSBY

William Henry Cosby Jr. was a very poplar American stand-up comedian, actor and author.

 Cosby began his career as a stand-up comic in San Francisco during the 1960s. He then landed a starring role in the television show I Spy, followed by his own sitcom The Bill Cosby Show which ran for two seasons from 1969 to 1971. In 1972, using the Fat Albert character he  developed during his stand-up routines, Cosby created, produced, and hosted the animated comedy television series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids which ran until 1985, centering on a group of young friends growing up in an urban area. Throughout the 1970s, Cosby starred in about half a dozen films, and he occasionally returned to film later in his career. In 1976, he earned his Doctor of Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His dissertation discussed the use of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids as a teaching tool in elementary school. I remember listening to his jokes on the radio. They were really funny. Cosby won a Grammy for best comedy performance for the album “I Started Out as a Child.” He was nominated for 15 Grammys over the next 22 years, winning the Grammy nine times. Cosby’s long stand-up career took off as he stared  in “I Spy.” He earned $30,000 a week in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe which was well over a million dollars a year and $5,000 a night for random performances adding to his yearly income.

Alas, it, was his sex drive that brought about his downfall just as it did to many other well-known personalities.

Sunni Welled alleged at a March 27^th, 2015, news conference that Cosby raped her twice when she was an aspiring singer in the mid-1960s by drugging her drink. She said the first time he attacked her, she was drinking Champagne and after the second time she was raped by Crosby, she never saw him again.

Kristina Ruehli was a 22-year-old secretary at a talent agency in Los Angeles in 1965 when she met Cosby. She alleged that Cosby invited her to his home where she says she passed out after being given two drinks by him, “It was all foggy, and I woke up in the bed,” she told Philadelphia Magazine. “I found myself on the bed, and he had his shirt off. He had unzipped his pants as I was just coming to.”

In November 2014, Carla Ferrigno, the wife of former “Incredible Hulk” star Lou Ferrigno, says that in 1967 she went on a double date with a friend, Cosby and his wife, Camille. She said that Cosby got her alone, grabbed her and kissed her. She pushed him off and ran to find her date, who then took her home.

Linda Joy Traitz, who has a criminal record in Florida, was working as a waitress at a Los Angeles restaurant co-owned by Cosby in 1969 when she alleged that he drugged and groped her while they were in his car.

Joan Tarshis came forward on November  16^th 2014, to say that Cosby drugged and assaulted her in 1969 when she was pursuing acting at the age of 19. Cosby allegedly forced her to perform oral sex on him during one encounter and he drugged and raped her in

another encounter with him. Why did she return to Crosby for another encounter with him/ Was she a  stupid woman who was a glutton for more of Crosby’s sexual attacks?

Cindra Ladd, the wife of former 20^th  Century Fox President Alan Ladd Jr., said in a January. 26^th , 2015, Huffington Post opinion piece that she first met Cosby in 1969 in New York when she was 21, single and working for film producer Ray Stark.                                

 One night before a movie outing, Ladd says she was complaining of a headache when Cosby offered her a “miracle cure.” The next morning, she says she woke up naked at a friend’s apartment, and Cosby was wearing a white terry cloth bathrobe. She said, “It was obvious that he had had sex with me.”

Linda Brown who was ,a former magazine cover model, told the Los Angeles Times in February 2015 that she was 21 when she agreed to meet Cosby for dinner after his show in 1969. She says he took her to his hotel room, where he drugged and sexually assaulted her. “I felt like a rag doll and like a real-life blow-up doll for him,” she said. “I was in a stupor.”

Victoria Valentino, a former Playboy bunny, said Cosby drugged and raped her in late 1969 in an apartment in the Hollywood Hills. She said Cosby had offered her and a friend white pills as she was mourning the loss of her 6-year-old child and several other relatives. Now working as  a registered nurse and nursing instructor, Valentino is part of PAVE, Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment, to help prevent young starlets from becoming sexual prey.

She said “If nothing comes out of this in terms of jail time for him or going to court even, at least it has given us a platform of trying to raise awareness of what rape culture is in our society and that we need to do something to change the thinking of people like Crosby.

Autumn Burns was working in a Las Vegas casino when she was 20 years old. She says Cosby invited her to his suite. She says he gave her a drug-tainted drink and forced her to have sex with him. “The only person I ever told about the rape was my baccarat boss,” she said in an April 23, 2015, news conference.

The actress, who appeared in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, told New York Magazine that Cosby forcibly put his penis in her mouth and demanded oral sex while she was waiting in the green room for an appearance on “The Tonight Show” in 1971.

Former model, Tamara Green appeared on NBC’s “Today” show in 2005 to say that Cosby groped and fondled her in her L.A. apartment in the 1970s after immobilizing her with what he said was cold medicine.

Former American Airlines flight attendant Colleen Hughes said she met Cosby on a flight to Los Angeles in the 1970s. She said she was at his hotel room when he gave her champagne after pouring it into her Gucci shoe. Hughes alleged that she woke up several hours later, with Cosby gone. She didn’t know what he did to her after she became unconscious.  

Linda Ridgeway, a 1970s movie actress who appeared with the late actor Charles Bronson in the 1972 film “The Mechanic,” said Cosby assaulted her in an office as he interviewed her for a part. She said, “I felt Cosby’s left hand gently grab my long hair behind my head, while his giant frame blocked the door,” she told reporters at a news conference with her attorney Gloria Allred.

During a December 2014 news conference with other accusers, Helen Hayes says she met Cosby in the summer of 1973 at a celebrity tennis tournament in Pebble Beach where Cosby followed her and her friends around. Hayes alleged that Cosby grabbed her breasts.

Cosby met McKee in Detroit. She had stayed to see her parents after performing in a show with Sammy Davis Jr., whom she was dating. McKee had known Cosby for years, appearing on the “The Bill Cosby Show” in 1971. Cosby asked her to pick up ribs and take him to a boat party. When she arrived at the St. Regis Hotel, she says Crosby appeared wearing a robe and a cap, and that he raped her. The whole incident took 60 seconds. She never confronted Cosby never told Davis and she never went to the police. She said that Crosby said to her.” I’m the number one star.” Actually he was the number one cad.

Marcella Tate was a 27-year-old model when she met Cosby in 1975. She alleged in an April 2015 news conference that he called her one day asking for a ride from the airport to the Playboy Mansion, where he gave her a drink where she  believed she  was drugged. She woke up to him beside her, “and it didn’t appear that  he was wearing anything.”

Margie Shapiro was 19 and working in a doughnut shop in Santa Monica when she met Cosby, who was shooting a film nearby. She alleged in a March 27^th ,2015, news conference that Cosby invited her to the Playboy Mansion and got her to take a pill for losing a game of pinball. She said she then woke up to Cosby who was  having sex with her. She told her family but not the police.  She said, “I was confused and at a loss because I could not believe that anyone would believe me over Bill Cosby,”

Named in documents as a “Jane Doe,” Therese Serignese came  forward in November 2014, accusing Cosby of drugging and assaulting her in 1976 when she was 19.

Sarta Butterfield told the New York Magazine that she drew Cosby’s attention after appearing on the cover of Playboy in 1977. Cosby invited her to a Christmas Eve dinner where he cornered her alone in the guesthouse, groped her and tried to kiss her. Butterfield said she had to fend him off.

Steuer, 59, met Cosby at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1978 when she was 22. He was getting his doctorate in education and she was working at the university after having earned her bachelor’s in music there. She told The Times she heard Cosby speak at an educator’s conference and then saw him on campus the next day and thanked him for his speech.

He took her to a banquet that evening and for a drink, where he expressed interest in helping her launch her singing career. He then invited her to a dinner party at the family home in Shelburne Falls, Mass., which turned out to be just a dinner for two, Steuer said. She got sick after half a drink, and woke up naked in a bed hours later. Cosby was standing over her, told her she got sick, passed out and he had to wash her dress.

She said, “And I believed him, I was so humiliated. I thought I had embarrassed myself,” Steuer said. “I thought he’d never call again.”

But Cosby did call, checking in on her every few months, paying for an acting class and for a gym membership, because he said she needed to lose weight to have a career on screen.

He took her to a banquet that evening and for a drink, where he expressed interest in helping her launch her singing career. He then invited her to a dinner party at the family home in Shelburne Falls, Mass., which turned out to be just a dinner for two. Steuer said that she got sick after half a drink, and woke up naked in a bed hours later. Cosby was standing over her and  told her that she got sick, passed out and he had to wash her dress.

She added. “I believed him, I was so humiliated I thought I had embarrassed myself,” Steuer said. “I thought he’d never call again. ”But Cosby did call, checking in on her every few months, paying for an acting class and for a gym membership, because he said she needed to lose weight to have a career on screen.

She went to two events with him without incident until he invited her to go to Atlantic City, N.J., in 1980. After she arrived, he asked her to visit his penthouse suite but wouldn’t let her in the door unless she took a white pill he was holding that would “relax her,” Steuer said. that she passed out and woke up feeling as if she had been penetrated by him. This time she confronted Cosby. She said he called her ungrateful and they never spoke again.

Steuer was just one of 13 Jane Does who corroborated Andrea Constand’s story in a civil suit against Cosby in 2005. She decided to reveal her name to New York Magazine after a deposition Cosby gave in that case became public.

I won’t add anymore to the list of victims that this pathological sex fiend  did to his other victims. It is suffice to say that this sex fiend had his way with young women for almost half a century. Now it was time for him to pay for his crimes.

Los Angeles prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against Bill Cosby in the only two open cases locally in which he was accused of sexually assaulting women. The move came less than a week after prosecutors in Pennsylvania filed the first charges against Cosby, accusing him of drugging and sexually assaulting a 31-year-old woman.

A bid by Bill Cosby’s lawyers to have the sexual assault charges against the entertainer dismissed was rejected by a judge thereby  clearing the way for a potential trial.

The judge, Steven O’Neill, said that he found “no basis to grant the relief request” by the attorneys. They had mounted a case over two days arguing that former Montgomery County Dist. Atty. Bruce Castor had made a non-prosecution agreement with the comedian’s lawyer more than a decade ago.

Meanwhile Cosby has dropped a defamation lawsuit against supermodel Beverly Johnson, who accused the comedian of drugging her in the 1980s.

The judge ruled that there was enough evidence that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted a woman just over a decade ago to bring a criminal case against him to trial, It marked a dramatic turn for the one-time icon, a major step in the only criminal case to spring from dozens of accusations that has ended his career and upended his legacy. If convicted on three sex crime counts, Cosby faced ten years in prison.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Debre Katz Weintraub ruled that a jury can decide the credibility of Dickinson’s allegations and whether a statement by Cosby’s former lawyer that branded her a liar amounted to defamation.

A Los Angeles judge ruled that a molestation lawsuit against Bill Cosby that was  brought by a Riverside woman who accused the entertainer of sexually assaulting her when she was 15 may go forward. Judy Huth’s suit alleges that Cosby gave her alcohol and then sexually abused her at the Playboy Mansion in 1974. Cosby’s attorneys argue unsuccessfully before L.A. County Superior Court Judge Craig Karlan that the case should be thrown out for various procedural reasons, including the statute of limitations.

California eliminated its statute of limitations for some rape cases after Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation filed in the wake of sexual assault allegations against comedian Bill Cosby. Senate Bill 813, filed by state Sen. Connie Leyva (D-Chino), amends the penal code so that some sex crimes, including rape, forcible sodomy and molestation of a child, can be prosecuted regardless of how long ago the crime occurred.

Norma Hernandez, backed by state Sen. Connie Leyva (D-Chino), wipes her eyes as she talks at a September 2016 news conference about being raped when she was 13. Leyva sponsored a bill that ended California’s statute of limitation in some rape case. Crosby was not the perp.

A Pennsylvania judge ruled that only one woman who had accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault may testify against him in his upcoming trial, dealing a setback to the lone viable criminal case against the entertainer. Prosecutors were hoping the testimony of 13 alleged victims would help persuade a jury that Cosby was guilty of assaulting another woman at his estate near Philadelphia in 2004.

meanwhile the American Library Assn. released its list of the most banned and challenged books in 2016, with Cosby joining perennially challenged authors John Green and David Levithan. Cosby’s “Little Bill” children’s book series ranked No. 9 on the list. Its inclusion is unusual because challenges to the books stemmed not from their content, but from allegations of sexual assault leveled against the comedian by a number of women.

Bill Cosby says he won’t testify in his sexual assault trial and is speaking out against his accusers, suggesting that racism is fueling the misconduct allegations leveled against him. “I just truly believe that some of it may very well be that,” the embattled comedian says in an interview with Sirius XM host Michael Smerconish.

Makingt that statement is like a swimmer caught in the jaws of a 30 foot shark saying. “I won’t fight the shark as it is only a small shark.’

His lawyers selected a 12-member jury in Cosby’s criminal trial. It consists of four white women, six white men, one black woman and one black man, according to media reports. The racial composition of the jury became an issue after Cosby gave a radio interview in early May of that year suggesting that racism could be a factor in accusations made against him. If pigs could speak, the hogwash would spew from Crosby’s mouth.

Crosby now faced trial on charges that he drugged and sexually assaulted Andrea Constand in 2004. Taking the witness stand, Colstand delivered dramatic testimony that offered a full account what Crosby had done to her. under oath that was anarrative similar to what other women had expressed only in scattered op-eds and TV appearances, often about encounters dating back many decades.

At Bill Cosby’s criminal trial, udge O’Neill sent he jury  back to the jury room to try to break the stalemate. Cosby’s defense moved immediately for a mistrial, but the judged denied the motion. If found guilty, Cosby could face up to 10 years on each count. A big question would be whether O’Neill revoked Cosby’s bond and sent the entertainer directly to  to jail.

The jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision. Prosecutors immediately said they would retry the case, and O’Neill said he would try to schedule a new trial within 120 days. The ruling brought  to an inconclusive finale one of the most high-profile sexual assault trials in years.

In the April retrial, a jury of seven men and five women found Crosby guilty of assault with lack of consent, penetration while the victim was unconscious, and assault after impairing the victim with an intoxicant.

Crosby posted $1-million bail was confined to his home outside Philadelphia for five months before sentencing, fitted with a GPS monitor and limited to travel only to visit his attorneys or for medical reasons.

Bill Cosby appealed his sex assault conviction claiming testimony from other accusers was 'strikingly dissimilar' to the charges and shouldn't have been heard in court.

That argument was so thin, it would be like trying to hold water in a sieve.  What the prosecutor was doing was telling the jurors that Crosby was also sexually other women and that his sexual attack on Costrand was a continuing of Crosby’s propensity to sexually attack women.

If nothing comes out of this in terms of jail time for him or going to court even, at least it has given sexual victims a platform of trying to raise awareness of what rape culture is in our society and that we need to do something to change the thinking that such crimes are minor.

He obviously lost millions of dollars and his legacy is so far down the toilet, his credibility plumber will never be able to retrieve it.

Rejecting the defense argument that Cosby was too frail to handle time behind bars, Judge Steven O’Neill ordered the 81-year-old entertainer to serve no less than three years and no more than 10 years in prison and to register as a sex offender, a label that will follow him for the rest of his life. Needless t say, he will be kept in protective custody.

Corrections spokeswoman, Susan McNaughton of the Pennsylvania Department of Prisons  told the USA TODAY said in an email, “Bill Cosby won't leave incarceration any time soon despite concerns that he could be susceptible to coronavirus in prison. Because he's a sex offender, inmate Cosby is not eligible for a reprieve by the governor,"