Judge Tosses Baldwin Woman’s Defamation Suit Vs. Bill Cosby

Renita Hill, who filed the lawsuit against Cosby last October, was a cast member on Cosby’s educational show Picture Pages, and began working on the show when she was a teenager. U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab threw out the case and cited that it was “with prejudice”, which means she can not file another such matter again. Hill went public with her allegations in November 2014.

Cosby’s attorneys welcomed the judge’s decision in a statement and said they hoped it would influence the outcome of other pending lawsuits.

Cosby mentored Hill when she was a young woman in the 1980s and paid for her education at Temple University and Spelman College, her attorneys have said.

The accusations toppled Cosby, who built his long career on family-friendly humor, from his status as one of America’s most-admired comedians.

Steele says, in reported legal documents, that Cosby is trying to use his celebrity and fortune to avoid consequences of crimes he committed and shouldn’t have his case dismissed.

Schwab said the remarks by Cosby and his team were protected under their right free speech. “But, looked at as a whole, they contain all sorts of innuendo and undisclosed facts”.

More than 50 women have come forward to accuse Cosby, 78, of sexual assault.

Hill alleged Cosby drugged and molested her for years, starting when she was 16, when she worked with him on a children’s TV show in Pittsburgh starting in 1983.

Cosby fought back against the defamation suit by insisting it held no merit as Hill was never mentioned by name in the original statements of denial.

A federal judge in Pennsylvania sided with the disgraced comedian and granted Cosby’s motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit, according to court records.

Besides Cosby and his lawyers, his wife, Camille, is a defendant in the Hill suit, because of the sole statement she has made about the accusations against her husband, when she raised questions about the motivations of the accusers and said the media failed to adequately vet them.