Washington - A bad month keeps getting worse for Bill Cosby. As recently as a week ago, 16 women had accused the veteran comedian of sexual assault. Now, that number stands at 20 – and the fallout is mounting.
On Wednesday, the Berklee School of Music, and Cosby’s alma mater, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, became the latest institutions to cut ties with the 77-year-old comedian as more women stepped forward with accusations.
Cosby, who was awarded a Ph D in education from the University of Massachusets, Amherst, in 1977, had been an honorary co-chair of the university’s $300 million (R3.3 billion) fundraising campaign, and one of its most distinguished alumni.
He’s donated millions to the school over the years, and raised millions more during a benefit performance in 2004, according to the Boston Globe.
Now, he is alumnus non grata.
“He no longer serves in any capacity for the university,” university spokesman Edward Blaguszewski informed The Washington Post.
The decision to break with Cosby came shortly after Berklee College of Music – which had given Cosby an honorary degree a decade ago – announced that it would no longer award a scholarship in the besieged entertainer’s name.
High Point University in North Carolina also announced that it has removed Cosby from its national board of advisers, the Globe reported.
And Freed-Hardeman University in Tennessee cancelled Cosby’s scheduled appearance at a December benefit dinner for student scholarships, according to the newspaper The Tennessean .
Cosby continues to serve on the Board of Trustees at Temple University, though NewsWorks.com reported that the school is under pressure to drop him.
Cosby’s been “publicly accused of raping, drugging, coercing or sexually assaulting 19 different women since 1965”, according to a tally published by the Wrap.
A 20th accuser came forward on Wednesday, when 73-year-old Donna Motsinger claimed Cosby had drugged and raped her while she was working as a waitress in Sausalito, California in 1971, according to the New York Post.
Jewell Allison, a former model who claims Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her after inviting her over for dinner at his New York home, told the New York Daily News that “he got away with it because he was hiding behind the image of Cliff Huxtable”.
According the Associated Press (AP): “Cosby testified under oath in 2005 that he gave the National Enquirer an exclusive interview about looming sexual-assault accusations by a Canadian woman against him, in exchange for the tabloid spiking a second accuser’s story.
“Did you ever think that if Beth Ferrier’s (the second accuser’s) story was printed in the National Enquirer, that that would make the public believe that maybe Andrea was also telling the truth?” Cosby was asked.
“‘Exactly,” Cosby replied, according to court motions initially filed under seal and made available from archived federal court records.
“Cosby, in the deposition, said he had a contract with the Enquirer.
“I would give them an exclusive story; my words,” Cosby said in the September 29, 2005, deposition.
In return, they “would not print Beth’s story.”
“The release of the documents comes after Cosby this month was shown on an AP video trying to persuade the news cooperative not to use his response when asked this month about growing sexual-abuse allegations.
“I would appreciate if it was scuttled,” Cosby said in a videotaped exchange on November 6.
Cosby is also accused of leaking a story to the National Enquirer about his daughter Erinn’s struggle with drug and alcohol abuse in order to suppress a different story, about his own behaviour in the tabloid, according to the New York Post.
With the accusations mounting, Cosby’s career has been crumbling.
NBC has dropped plans to develop a new Cosby sitcom, Netflix has cancelled a planned Cosby special, and TVLand said that it would stop airing Cosby Show re-runs.
Cosby’s comedy performances in at least two states have been cancelled, David Letterman and Queen Latifah have dumped him as a TV guest and Comedy Central has decided not to air a day-after-Thanksgiving rerun of a previously-recorded Cosby special.
Cosby has plummeted from number three to number 2 615 on Marketing Arm’s list of most trusted celebrities, according to the Wall Street Journal.
As the number of alleged victims grows, Cosby is not without his defenders, however.
In an interview with the online outlet Farrahgray.com, Cosby’s nephew, Braxton A Cosby, who serves as the CEO of Cosby Media Productions, expressed support for his uncle and said that the allegations are part of a larger effort to destroy the positive content produced by his company.
“I believe he is innocent, and unless the judicial system can prove otherwise, I stand behind him and his contributions,” he told the site.
Bill Cosby spoke on the matter to Florida Today on November 21, before doing a show in Melbourne, Florida.
“I know people are tired of me not saying anything, but a guy doesn’t have to answer to innuendo.”
One of Cosby’s attorneys, Martin D Singer, issued a written statement last week denying the claims:
“The new, never-before-heard claims from women who have come forward in the past two weeks with unsubstantiated, fantastical stories about things they say occurred 30, 40, or even 50 years ago, have escalated far past the point of absurdity,” Singer wrote.
“These brand new claims about alleged decades-old events are becoming increasingly ridiculous, and it is completely illogical that so many people would have said nothing, done nothing, and made no reports to law enforcement – or asserted civil claims if they thought they had been assaulted over a span of so many years.
“Lawsuits are filed against people in the public eye every day.
“There has never been a shortage of lawyers willing to represent people with claims against rich, powerful men, so it makes no sense that not one of these new women who just came forward for the first time now ever asserted a legal claim back at the time they allege they had been sexually assaulted.
“This situation is an unprecedented example of the media’s breakneck rush to run stories without any corroboration or adherence to traditional journalistic standards.
“Over and over again, we have refuted these new unsubstantiated stories with documentary evidence, only to have a new uncorroborated story crop up out of the woodwork.
“When will it end?
“It is long past time for this media vilification of Mr Cosby to stop.”
Washington Post-Bloomberg