Earlier this week, Bill Cosby made clear he “does not intend to dignify” the many allegations against him—a promise he has so far fulfilled by hiring attorney Marty Singer, whose response had so far ensured that complete lack of dignity. After sending one of his trademark threatening letters to BuzzFeed, suggesting that the site and anyone else publishing stories from Cosby’s alleged accusers was placing themselves in peril of legal prosecution, Singer has now released another, much lengthier statement blasting those women and the media. Like so many of Singer’s missives, it’s grating, confusing in parts, and no one is looking forward to seeing it. He is quickly becoming the Leonard Part 6 of lawyers.
Singer’s letter specifically blasts Linda Joy Traitz—who claimed Cosby drove her to the beach, offered her pills, and attempted to force himself on her—by referencing her criminal history, which he says includes identity theft, drug possession, and fraud. He also went after two new claims made just yesterday: Carla Ferrigno, wife of Incredible Hulk star Lou Ferrigno, claims Cosby attacked her in 1967 in his home while Cosby’s wife was asleep upstairs, grabbing her and forcefully kissing her. And Louisa Moritz, an actress familiar from Love American Style and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, said Cosby forced her to perform oral sex on him while backstage at The Tonight Show in 1971. “Have a taste of this,” she says he told her. “It will do you good in so many ways… You don’t want to upset me and the plans for your future, do you?”
“We’ve reached the point of absurdity. The stories are getting more ridiculous,” Singer said in response. “I think people are trying to come up with these wild stories in order to justify why they have waited 40 to 50 years to disclose these ridiculous accusations.” The sort of logic feedback loop this creates—that these women are fabricating stories to explain why they waited so long to disclose their stories, which they fabricated to explain why they waited so long to disclose their stories, which they etc.—is why Singer gets paid the big lawyer bucks.
Singer also called into question the credibility of Moritz, now a criminal defense lawyer, by noting that she had been disciplined by the California State Bar and ordered not to practice. He says this was because she “didn’t report certain quarterly reports,” though he admits that “the nature of the reports is unclear from the documents.” Presumably his team is still trying to determine whether these were Moritz’s quarterly “Bill Cosby Did Not Sexually Assault Me” report, which would indeed be a smoking gun.
Singer’s statement was unfortunately too late for him to also address the latest accusation from Angela Leslie, who told the New York Daily News that—after sending Cosby a letter and photo in hopes of landing a role in 1990’s Ghost Dad—Cosby invited her to the set of The Cosby Show. Though she canceled that trip because of illness, she says she later accepted another invitation to meet him in Las Vegas, where he brought her to his room and had her “audition” by pretending to be intoxicated, then handing her a drink to help with that. She says he then put lotion in her palm and “masturbated with my hand.”
Singer’s letter also doesn’t cover the freshly added charges of Renita Chaney Hill, who spoke with Pittsburgh’s KDKA about her four-year relationship with Cosby, which she claims started when she was just a 15-year-old aspiring model. In it, she tells a familiar story of Cosby insisting she have a drink, even though she was underage, then waking up the next morning in her bed with Cosby there and no memory of what had happened. “It was just a horrifying feeling thinking that as a part of your dream you felt like this was something you had to endure,” Hill said.
Still, Singer has already sort-of covered these—and any other future accusations—with a blanket statement characterizing it all as “utter nonsense” that doesn’t deserve the attention it’s getting. “People coming out of nowhere with this sort of inane yarn is what happens in a media-driven feeding frenzy,” Singer said, specifically addressing Carla Ferrigno’s story of “a purported ‘forceful kiss’,” but speaking generally of any innocuous, unwanted and forced physical contact Cosby might have placed on a woman. Or, so many of them that it’s becoming difficult to count.
And in what is always a sign that you are on the right side of an argument, Glenn Beck added his own voice to Cosby’s defense, taking to the airwaves to deliver his latest in a long line of solid reasoning: Bill Cosby is the real rape victim here, and the perpetrator is the Associated Press, for releasing a video in which Cosby was grossly, forcibly assaulted by a question he didn’t like.
“You want to talk about rape? That’s media rape, right there,” said Beck, a master of analogy who has previously compared to Nazis everyone from President Obama to Al Gore to the Peace Corps to a rude flight attendant. Beck then continued this line of reasoning by lamenting that no one seems to understand that “no means no” anymore when it comes to asking a question of a celebrity:
“You said you would not do that. Since when does your ‘no’ mean ‘yes?’ Do you know the definition of ‘no,’ sir? You’ve just raped Bill Cosby. You said you wouldn’t do it. You just did it and then you blamed it on him. My gosh, maybe we should have a lesson on rape.”
Of course, The Associated Press statement accompanying the video made clear there was no prior agreement to avoid those questions, or to withhold Cosby’s answers. But then, as Beck would point out, this is just more blaming the victim.
While Singer and Beck were protecting Cosby from more of these violations from the media, the comedian was safely sheltered in the Bahamas, where he performed a stand-up set to a nearly sold-out crowd at a benefit for a women’s service organization. Officials behind the event said they had no qualms about having Cosby on the bill, as “nothing has been proven.” (And besides, who has been a greater advocate than Bill Cosby of women conscripted into service?)
Promoters at Tucson’s Diamond Desert Casino seemed to disagree, as they announced that a scheduled Feb. 15 concert by Cosby has been canceled, though no official reason was given. Given that they said they wouldn’t cancel Cosby’s show, but then just went ahead and did it, Glenn Beck is shortly expected to accuse them of raping his tour schedule.