Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images(PENNSYLVANIA) — Bill Cosby’s lawyer said Tuesday that his client has been the victim of “racial bias and prejudice” as the sexual assault allegations against him have played out in the court of public opinion.
The statement — which targeted lawyer Gloria Allred, who has represented some of the women who accused Cosby of sexual misconduct — came as a trial date of June 5, 2017, was set Tuesday afternoon in the comedian’s Pennsylvania sexual assault case.
“Mr. Cosby is no stranger to discrimination and racial hatred, and throughout his career Mr. Cosby has always used his voice and his celebrity to highlight the commonalities and has portrayed the differences that are not negative — no matter the race, gender and religion of a person,” his lawyer, Brian McMonagle, told reporters outside the courthouse.
“Yet over the last 14 months, Mr. Cosby and those who have supported him have been ignored while lawyers like Gloria Allred hold press conferences to accuse him of crimes for unwitnessed events that allegedly occurred almost a half-century earlier.”
Allred did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dozens of women have come forward and accused Cosby of sexual misconduct over the past several years. His legal team has vehemently denied the accusations, and he was charged only in the Pennsylvania case.
The three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault against Cosby stem from an alleged 2004 incident, in which accuser Andrea Constand, an employee of Temple University at the time, claims Cosby drugged and molested her.
Cosby admitted a decade ago during a deposition for a civil suit filed by Constand that he gave her Benadryl and said that anything that happened at his Pennsylvania home was consensual at that time. Constand and Cosby eventually settled the civil suit for an undisclosed amount.
Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
