Three More Women Come Forward About Bill Cosby
LatestHelen Hayes, Beth Ferrier and a woman who only identified herself as “Chelan” were joined at a press conference by attorney Gloria Allred.
Beth Ferrier was Jane Doe #5 in Andrea Constand’s suit against Cosby (she first went public with her allegations in 2006). Ferrier said she was an aspiring model and actress in the 80s when she met Cosby in New York City. She said the comedian pursued her and they ended up having an affair for several months. After she ended the relationship, Cosby called her and said he was coming to Denver, where she lived, for a performance.
Ferrier teared up when describing their encounter backstage after his performance. She said he gave her a cup of cappuccino (“my favorite”) which she consumed. She said she then became dizzy and unconscious.
“The next thing I knew, hours passed and I woke up in the back of my car alone,” she said. “My clothes were a mess; my bra was undone. My car was in the alleyway behind the venue. I felt confused disoriented. I had no idea what happened to me.”
The last memory she had was drinking the coffee. She later went to Cosby’s hotel room to confront him about what happened to her. His explanation was that she had had too much to drink, but she did not believe him. “I believe that Mr. Cosby drugged me and sexually assaulted me that night.”
“For years, I did not tell anyone about what he had done to me because I was afraid,” Ferrier said. “I felt threatened by him, and I did not think anyone would believe me.”
Ferrier’s story is also yet another example of how the media worked to conceal the allegations or flat-out portray Cosby as the real victim. Ferrier said in 2005 when she learned of Costand’s lawsuit, she decided to come forward as well. She went to the National Enquirer who told her they would print her story if she took a lie detector test. She did and passed it.
“To my surprise, the National Enquirer did not publish my interview,” Ferrier said. Instead the paper ran an exclusive interview with Cosby, where he denied the allegations, painting himself as good guy who tried to nice things for people and got burned. She said when she joined Costand’s lawsuit, she received “fierce” backlash.
Hayes had difficulty speaking as her emotions overwhelmed her. She said she was attending the Clint Eastwood Celebrity Tennis Tournament in Pebble Beach, California in 1973 with two of her friends. She said Cosby followed them around all day on a Saturday and caught up to them on a Saturday night, even though they had changed restaurants to avoid him.
Hayes called Cosby’s behavior “like that of a predator.” She said she met him at a tennis tournament and things quickly turned ugly. “When he found us in the last restaurant he approached me from behind and reached over my shoulder and grabbed my right breast. I was stunned and angry.”
Chelan said in 1986, when she was just 17, she met Cosby when she was working at the Las Vegas Hilton. Chela” was an aspiring model and her stepmother sent pictures of her to Cosby. Chelan said Cosby then phoned her home and invited her and her grandmother to meet him in Las Vegas.
“He said to meet me in the Elvis Presley Suite. He said he was going to introduce me to someone in the Ford Modeling agency,” she said.
Cosby gave her a blue pill to help her with a cold she had and then gave her alcohol. He rubbed her neck and had her put on a robe and told her would send someone to give her “stess therapy.” He told her to wet her hair so that when the person from Ford Modeling came they could see the texture. Someone did come to the room, took pictures of her, told her she had to lose weight and left.
Then Cosby walked her to bedroom, giving her more alcohol to “help” her cold.
“I laid down. He laid down next to me on the bed and began pinching my left nipple and humping my leg while he was grunting,” she said, breaking down into tears. “I could not open my eyes. I could not move or say anything.”
Chelan said she felt something warm on her legs and then blacked out. “13 to 16 hours later I woke up by hearing Mr. Cosby clapping his hands and saying, ‘Daddy says wake up.’ He gave me $1,500.”
He said the money was to buy something nice for her and her grandmother and invited them to go see the Temptations perform. “My grandmother went but I did not go, because I felt too sick,” she said. Cosby invited them to his performance at the hotel where she worked and she went because her grandmother really wanted to see him.
Chelan heckled Cosby while he was on stage and as a result was fired. She collapsed in tears, saying it had destroyed her life.
Allred said she has been approached by women looking for legal repercussions against Cosby, but had to inform them that due to the statute of limitations they had few options.
Allred said Cosby benefits from the “arbitrary” amount of time that dictates when victims can file suit. At the conference, Allred pressed Cosby directly, offering two options for him. She said he should either waive the statute of limitations or put up $100 million of his own money to pay damages to all of his victims.
“If he is confident that he has done nothing wrong, then he could waive, meaning not assert it, in a court of law,” she said. “The his alleged victims would have an opportunity to have their allegations dealt with on their merits. Bill Cosby would have an opportunity to address these allegations in a court of law.”
Allred said if Cosby wasn’t willing to subject himself to scrutiny in a court of law then “he should agree to place $100 million into a fund” for his alleged victims and use a panel of retired judges to decide who would get the money.
“It is time for justice and accountability,” she said. “We challenge Mr. Cosby to end this nightmare.”
Cosby has not responded to Allred’s proposal, but on Monday, he faced the first legal challenge since the wave of recent accusations by multiple women first began. Judith Huth filed a lawsuit alleging Cosby assaulted her at the Playboy mansion in 1974, when she was only 15 years old. According to California state law, a claim can be brought within three years of when the emotional impact of abuse is discovered.