Cosby prosecutors plan to call Janice Dickinson to stand
PHILADELPHIA » Janice Dickinson, the model and reality TV star who says Bill Cosby drugged and raped her in 1982, is one of the five additional accusers that prosecutors plan on calling to the witness stand at Cosby’s looming sexual assault retrial, according to documents made public on Wednesday.
Prosecutors listed Dickinson in a letter informing Judge Steven O’Neill which of Cosby’s accusers they wanted to testify at Cosby’s April 2 retrial on charges he drugged and molested former Temple University athletics administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home.
Prosecutors want to show that the alleged assault was the latest in a decades-long series of attacks on women.
Cosby, now 80, has pleaded not guilty. His first trial ended in a hung jury last year.
Dickinson has alleged that Cosby knocked her out with a pill he gave her after she complained of stomach pain and that she woke up in pain, with fluids between her legs.
Dickinson, who was 27 at the time, said she never reported the encounter in Lake Tahoe to authorities because she feared damage to her career and retaliation from Cosby, who was 45.
Now, at 63, Dickinson is “ready, willing and able to testify truthfully about her experience,” said her lawyer, Lisa Bloom.
The other accusers on the prosecution list are:
— Janice Baker-Kinney, a bartender who says she awoke naked with signs she had been sexually assaulted after Cosby insisted she take two pills in 1982.
— Heidi Thomas, an aspiring actress who says Cosby forced her to perform oral sex as she faded in and out of consciousness after he gave her a drink in 1984.
— Chelan Lasha, a model and aspiring actress who says she lay immobilized and unable to speak as Cosby pinched her nipple and humped her leg after he gave her a pill he described as an antihistamine in 1986.
— Lise-Lotte Lublin, an aspiring actress who alleges Cosby sexually assaulted her after prodding her to take two drinks to relax in 1989.
Prosecutors passed on bringing back Kelly Johnson — the only other accuser O’Neill allowed to testify at Cosby’s first trial — after his lawyers seized on inconsistencies in her story.
Cosby’s lawyers have said the women are bandwagon accusers who came forward in recent years amid a wave of ancient, unsubstantiated allegations. The defense lost a bid on Wednesday to appeal O’Neill’s decision that allowed the women to take the stand.
Prosecutors said they had at least two supporting witnesses for each of the testifying accusers.
Pennsylvania allows prosecutors to present evidence of alleged past misdeeds if they demonstrate the defendant engaged in a signature pattern of crime.
Prosecutors argue Cosby used his power and appeal as a beloved entertainer to befriend younger women and then plied them with drugs or alcohol before assaulting them.
Dickinson, a major model in the 1980s and 1990s, came forward in November 2014 — weeks after comedian Hannibal Buress’ joke about Cosby’s reputation put a spotlight on his alleged mistreatment of women.
Cosby lawyer Martin Singer called Dickinson’s allegations a lie and said they were a “glaring contradiction” to what she wrote in her book and what she had previously told the media. Dickinson is now suing Cosby and his representatives for defamation.
She said she wrote about the assault in a draft of her 2002 autobiography, “No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World’s First Supermodel,” but that Cosby and his lawyers pressured her and the publisher to remove the details.
In the finished book, she wrote that she felt Cosby wanted sexual favors after taking her to dinner, but that he eventually gave up.
Even before she came forward, Dickinson dropped hints about the alleged assault. In June 2006, she told Howard Stern that Cosby was a “bad guy” who “preys on women.”
Prosecutors listed the women only by witness number.