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Bill Cosby's Lawyer Claims "Women Have Responsibility" When It Comes To Rape
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Aug 1, 2015
Modified Aug 1, 2015
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By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Aug 1, 2015
Modified Aug 1, 2015
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The attorney for Bill Cosby says that the 46 women who have come forward to claim the comedian sexually assaulted them—35 of whom publically reiterated the assault charges with New York magazine in a massive feature this week—were too slow to report rape. She told HuffPost Live yesterday that "women have responsibility" when it comes to reporting rape, and says the women who claim her client assaulted them are conducting a "witch hunt" against Cosby.
Cosby's attorney, Monique Pressley, appears to be using the alleged victims' reluctance to immediately report the assaults as the basis for her defense:
I'm not speculating, I'm not thinking, I'm not opining, I'm not waxing poetic, but what I'm saying is women have responsibility. We have responsibility for our bodies, we have responsibility for our decisions, we have responsibility for the way we conduct ourselves.
The only way for a woman to get the justice that she seeks -- and that, if her allegation is true, that she deserves -- is to come forward [soon after the crime]. And even if the reasons that the women did not do that are legitimate ones, what cannot happen -- in my opinion, in the United States -- is that 40 years later there is a persecution tantamount to a witch hunt where there was no prosecution timely and there was no civil suit timely. And there's not any testimony or any accusation from any of these women that Mr. Cosby in any way bound them, gagged them, prevented them from coming forward and saying whatever their truth was at the time. That's not what happened.
You can watch the whole interview below:
The NY Mag feature addressed the victims' reluctance to report the alleged assaults—many said they felt emboldened to speak up once more and more victims came forward. "I could have walked down any street of Manhattan at any time and said, 'I'm being raped and drugged by Bill Cosby,' but who the hell would have believed me?" Barbara Bowman, who told NY Mag she was repeatedly drugged and assaulted by the comedian when she was 17, said. "Nobody, nobody." Another victim, PJ Masen, told the magazine that her supervisor at the Playboy Club told her, "Nobody's going to believe you. I suggest you shut your mouth," when she reported being assaulted.
68 percent of rapes go unreported, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).
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Monique Pressley
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Rebecca Fishbein
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