Cosby drops remaining counts of lawsuit against his accusers

NEW YORK: Comedian Bill Cosby has dropped the remaining counts of a lawsuit he filed against one of the women accusing him of sexual assault, along with several others, claiming they violated the terms of a confidential settlement in another lawsuit.

The dismissal came on Thursday, 10 days after the US district judge Eduardo Robreno ruled Cosby could not sue Andrea Constand, her mother, Gianna Constand, or her attorneys, Dolores Troiani and Bebe Kivitz, for speaking to investigators about her accusations.

Cosby filed the suit in February, accusing the Constands, the lawyers and American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer, of violating the terms of a 2006 confidential settlement.

Robreno let stand Cosby’s other claims, including that Constand, a former Temple University basketball coach, violated the confidentiality agreement through posts she made on Twitter about the case and in comments to the Toronto Sun newspaper.

Those remaining claims were dropped in a two-page notice filed in the district court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Thursday, according to online court documents.

Cosby, 78, faces accusations of sexual assault by more than 50 women. He has denied having non-consensual sex with any of them.

Constand’s allegations he drugged and assaulted her at his Pennsylvania home in 2004 are the basis for the only criminal case against him so far.

Most of the other alleged assaults occurred too long ago for the cases to be prosecuted. The 2006 agreement stemmed from a lawsuit Constand filed against Cosby in 2005. – Reuters