Model gets ‘epic’ payout in defamation case

Model Janice Dickinson has declared an “epic” victory in her defamation case against Bill Cosby.

The supermodel and her lawyer Lisa Bloom said Thursday they’ve settled their four-year legal battle with the fallen funnyman’s insurance provider AIG against Cosby’s wishes.

Dickinson sued Cosby in May 2015, saying he intentionally defamed her when his lawyer issued statements that branded her a liar after she stepped forward with claims Cosby drugged and raped her in a Lake Tahoe hotel room in 1982.

“A settlement is a victory and certainly a measure of justice and helps me sleep better, but in reality, nothing can ever erase the experience and memories of the assault,” Dickinson said Thursday.

“Jail is where he belongs,” she said of Cosby (inset). “But there aren’t enough years left for him to pay for what he has done to so very many, many women.”

Dickinson said she was drugged and raped “by a monster,” and her life “from then went into a downward spiral.”

“I became different. I lost that innocence,” she said.

Bloom said the financial terms of the deal were confidential, but the pact allows Dickinson to speak freely about her experience with Cosby.

“I can’t tell you the number, but I can say that it is an epic amount which is a powerful statement from Bill

Cosby’s own insurance company over his objections,” Bloom said. “Janice has won her case.”

Cosby’s camp confirmed the comediissued an objected to AIG’s decision to settle under a homeowner’s insurance policy issued to the former “Cosby Show” star.

Back in April, the provider settled similar defamation claims by seven women who sued together in federal court in Massachusetts.

“To be clear, AIG’s settlement of this lawsuit has no bearing whatsoever on the merit of Ms. Dickinson’s claims,” Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt said in an email to The News.

“Mr. Cosby has every confidence that, had the case proceeded to trial, a jury would have found that the statements by his former attorney— statements which Mr. Cosby himself never spoke and which he played no part in preparing— were not defamatory,” Wyatt said. He accused AIG of “robbing Mr. Cosby of the opportunity to clear his name in a court of law, where evidence and truthfulness are supposed to be elevated above headlines and gossip.” Speaking to the Daily News, Bloom said the deal with AIG was actually reached last month before oral arguments in California’s 2nd Appellate District on Cosby’s second appeal in the case.

She alerted the appeals court to the tentative agreement, but the judges moved ahead with the arguments on June 27 and later issued a tentative ruling in Dickinson’s favor.

While a final ruling from the appeals court is still pending, Bloom’s firm filed case dismissal paperwork that was awaiting a stamp from the Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday.

A Superior Court judge previously ruled enough evidence existed to suggest Cosby approved the statements about Dickinson that led to her lawsuit.

Cosby, 82, is serving three to 10 years in a Pennsylvania prison after he was convicted last year of drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University staffer Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004.

He filed a separate appeal of the conviction last month, arguing the trial judge erred repeatedly, including when he allowed Dickinson and four other women to testify that Cosby drugged and assaulted them.