Posted on 12/04/2014 8:02:52 AM PST by SteveH
As the number of sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby grows, the comedian is now facing a lawsuit from a woman who claims Cosby molested her when she was 15. In a suit filed at Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday, Judy Huth states that Cosby sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion in 1974, the Los Angeles Times reports. The lawsuit marks the first time the latest wave of accusations against Cosby has resulted in legal action.
While the state of California can only pursue criminal charges against Cosby had the incident occurred in 1988 or after due to the statute of limitations, a civil trial could proceed if Huth can prove that she has developed "psychological injuries and illnesses" in the past three years as a result of the decades-old alleged assault.
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
Aqain, you’re not listeninq. I DO have suspicions about Cosby’s innocence. That’s why I say I don’t know what happened.
Jeesh. Basic comprehension seems to be above your skill level.
Even stranqers who only knew his name could come up with ALLEQATIONS. That is my point. Somebody simply makinq a claim means nothinq. As I said - and as you contorted yourself to evade, aqain - I could come up with 20 people to make alleqations aqainst you in an hour’s time. But what would it prove? With my epistemoloqy it would just mean that 20 people made an accusation that needed to be fact-checked and supported by evidence. Under your epistemoloqy it would mean that in an hour’s time 20 total stranqers could destroy your livelihood, your reputation, and everythinq you have spent a lifetime workinq towards.
If it happened to you would you consider it fair? Qood? Reasonable?
Have you ever been unjustly accused of somethinq? Have you followed the Mike Brown/Darren Wilson case at all? Do you have any idea how a false accusation can tear a person’s life apart? There is a reason for due process. There is a reason for evidentiary standards. There is a reason for “innocent until proven quilty”.
I suqqest that if you don’t value those reasons or ascribe to them, you should move to Iran. Or stay in Iran if that’s where you’re at now.
Evidently you are another one who doesn’t know anything about the situation and just wants to argue endlessly.
Cosby’s problems with rape is not being caused by strangers who just knew his name and accused him out of thin air.
Physical evidence that would indicate that the WHOLLY CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE can be connected to something upon which 12 jurors could support a verdict of guilty.
That’s the standard. For EVERYBODY.
What about that can you not grok? Seriously. The Constitution, and especially the 4th and 5th amendments, apply to ALL CITIZENS. It even applies to liberals.
You are committing the same basic and grievous error the disloyal opposition commits. The disloyal opposition can be forgiven, because they really don’t understand what they are doing, and they don’t care.
You, however, should KNOW BETTER.
A nation of laws, everyone equal under the law. No special treatment, or burden, for anyone.
Going after Clinton for Perjury was STUPID. In fact, had we NOT gone after Clinton back then, we’d have a MUCH BETTER chance of actually impeaching Obola.
You need to realize that this is a discussion forum, not a courtroom.
Fine, you don’t believe Clinton ever raped a woman, most of the rest of us here believe that he did.
Sure is. What he did was wrong. But he could not do it without plenty of cooperation. Why are 'they' turning on him now ? Is it political ?
I know. I was going way over the top to make a point.
Someone said that Cosby escorted the young female to the Playboy Mansion in a limo, which is likely correct.
Like most every case involving Cosby that I've read about... what were these underage females doing ALONE with Cosby, spending the night at his home, his hotel, the Playboy Mansion, etc. to begin with ?
And probably let all the pretty girls in, no matter their age. Or did.
It is no longer a private residence, and Hefner doesn't even own it. He rents part of it from Playboy Enterprises.
Cooperation from a consenting minor is an extenuating circumstance, but does not change the essentual statutory legal nature of the sexual abuse. From a legal standpoint, cooperation from a minor is not an excuse because the minor is not legally deemed to have enough knowledge and experience to make decisions concerning participating in sexual acts with adults on her own.
As to why they are turning on him now, I do not know and most people probably cannot tell with certainty. If I had to guess, I would guess that the alleged victims have formed a support network and are coordinating taking Cosby down legally, and that they are doing it now because of the momentum that has built up in the press and media. There was recently a full length movie on the topic of sexual abuse in the film industry that was just recently released. It discusses other movie stars. I think it might be Amy Berg’s “An Open Secret.” So with the alleged Cosby victims, the question possibly would have been “if not now, when?” and “can we let him (Cosby) get away with it forever?” (if he is in fact guilty of the allegations).
One has to factor in that the women who step forward all risk being regarded as “bimbos” and “sluts,” and that the way this game is played in Hollywood and elsewhere is that the rich and powerful hire lawyers to blame the alleged victims, even if the charges are true. The road to settlement is littered with stories of unsuccessful lawsuit victims who stepped forward, just to see their own lives turned inside out in public by high priced lawyers. Young people in their teens and twenties do not always pay attention to headlines, but older and more powerful people can game the system to their advantage. i think this is about more than Cosby. It is about an under-exposed dark side of the entire film making culture. Cosby is just the tip of an iceberg. The people coming forward now are in part trying to change the culture for the better by exposing that dark underbelly. However, they are taking the flak for it. Cf. earlier responses about bimbos and sluts. Whether or not one believes Cosby is guilty of sexual predation, hopefully everyone here can agree that this sort of institutionalized abuse should be stopped, and stopped immediately, by any legal means necessary.
IANAL
keep hallucinating
Fine, but the stuff being complained about happened in the 1960s and 1970s. In any case, ownership by a corporation does not imply that age must be checked, to my knowledge. Many churches are incorporated for example, but checking the age of churchgoers on entry to a church seems as if it would be unusual. If you think age should be checked, you need to state clearly the legal reason why. For example, is the establishment a licensed bar in which alcohol is served? just that sex goes on somewhere in a privately owned or rented residence, or that a building in which sex sometimes occurs is owned by a corporation (eg hotel owned by Holiday Inn) does not seem legally sufficient to mandate an age check by guards at property perimeters.
Well, if Cosby is a sexual predator like the alleged victims seem to be claiming, then you have a possible answer, yes?
... and part of the proper function of our legal system is deterrence.
Yes.
I agree.
As to why they are turning on him now, I do not know...
Me either, but I know where it started and who started it.
i think this is about more than Cosby. It is about an under-exposed dark side of the entire film making culture. Cosby is just the tip of an iceberg. The people coming forward now are in part trying to change the culture for the better by exposing that dark underbelly. However, they are taking the flak for it. Cf. earlier responses about bimbos and sluts. Whether or not one believes Cosby is guilty of sexual predation, hopefully everyone here can agree that this sort of institutionalized abuse should be stopped, and stopped immediately, by any legal means necessary.
Very well said, and I agree. However, it continues and likely will.
Sure. So why did they keep going back ?
P.S. Thank you for your well written responses. Only through rigorous debate can we root out the truth.
The ones who came back — presuming they were adults during the time of interactions — possibly lost their standing to sue in civil court (civil court being at this time presumably the primary scope of legal action). whatever they were to begin with— victims or not— they became willing participants later, possibly attempting to give favors in order to further their own film careers.
IANAL
Here is what I posted in a different thread:
It has to be a church that isn’t worried about beinq “hip” and “with the times”. If you’re lookinq for a faithful woman you’re lookinq for somebody counter-cultural, and the places that the current culture condemns are the best places to look.
What surprised me in this article was the willinqness to pin a qood portion of the blame on the media, for always spinninq thinqs the “politically correct” way rather than allowinq the free flow of reasonable debate. By acceptinq that - and obeyinq the media’s rules for the road - a lot of otherwise qood people have siqned over this qeneration to hopelessness.
This article talked about how men have been throuqh rape and harassment classes and realize that they are “quilty until proven innocent” if a woman so much as accuses them. I’ve just been in a conversation with “conservatives” here, reqardinq whether the accusations aqainst Bill Cosby are enouqh to believe him quilty without actual evidence that the alleqations are true. My point beinq that when we’ve lost “innocent until proven quilty” and the need for evidence, we’ve made everythinq one biq qame, where truth doesn’t matter and the only thinq that DOES matter is who has the audacity to lie. And the QUANTITY of the accusations is all that matters - even if none of the accusations ends up beinq true.
Too many people have accepted a lazy mind, refusinq to do the sortinq out and debatinq necessary to maintain the core foundational principles of this nation. And I believe a huqe part of that is the trolls. They pose as “conservatives” in places like this and they join in qroups so they can make it look like there is “conservative consensus” in a thread. Those who do qroup-think rather than the hard work of actually processinq issues, arquments, etc qive in to that and join in the pile-up accusinq the thinkers of beinq “extreme”.
It’s asymmetric warfare on the intellectual level. No lonqer do people ONLY stand in the “liberal” and “conservative” shootinq line and lob volleys at each other. Internet anonymity allows posinq trolls to stand in the line with their enemy and shoot at everybody in that line so people in that line become confused about who the real enemy (tarqet) is. And it’s never the “qood quys” who do that; they are too busy raisinq their families and havinq a life. It’s the people who are paid to do those thinqs or who are natural saboteurs of the social qood.
And Obama and his lifelonq allies have said they would turn the structure upside-down so that instead of a trianqular base of qivers who uphold the few needy ones at the tip of the trianqle, we have a base of takers suckinq the life out of the few qivers at the top. The qoal in creatinq so many “takers” is to tip over the trianqle so there is chaos and people have to cry out to the qovernment to be their “Lord” and save them. To the communists, intact families are the opposition. That’s why the stated qoals of the communists (as entered into the Conqressional Record in the 60’s by those who studied the communists in America) include planks that attack real Christianity. Druqs, free sex, abortion, pornoqraphy, redefininq marriaqe out of existence, divorce, etc - anythinq that would destroy the family as the society’s basic unit for providence, protection, and meaninq was to be pushed onto the society in order to break it and let the qovernment arise as “Lord”. Anythinq that would make men and women incapable of lifelonq, committed marriaqes and homes was to be pushed stronqly in the media, business, science, education, the churches, and qovernment.
We are almost at the point of no return. The only hope is divine intervention. And that intervention will result in clear thinkinq that strips away the lies of the aqitators/saboteurs amonq us.
“You need to realize that this is a discussion forum, not a courtroom.”
A lie travels half way around the world before the truth puts its pants on.
You’re not ignorant, or incapable of logic, learning from the past, or seeing when you are completely and obviously arguing an untenable position.
As such, you have to look at this last statement and see that it is obviously and patently not in line with either history or reality.
People get tried and convicted in the court of public opinion every single day.
You’re ACTUAL position is, “They do it to us all the time and get away with it. Now they are doing it to one of their own, and as such, he deserves what he gets.”
I’m empathetic. It’s mixed emotions - like your worst enemy going off the cliff in your brand new Ferrari.
However, due process is important. It’s paramount. What the press is allowed to do to folks is killing the country. I’m not defending Cosby.
However, if you are naïve enough to believe that the steady, unrelenting, continuous, and ORCHESTRATED release of a new charge almost every day is just an accident assassination of a man’s career, then, well, there’s no more to discuss.
All of these people will eventually end up somewhere in the liberal feeding trough. That is ONE thing the left is good at. “If you go out there and show the world your ass and help us bring this guy down, we will find you a job that will set you up for life. Someone will hire you and if you lay low, no one will fire you. Deal?”
The reason why this is happening to Cosby is because the political opposition cannot beat his ideas. Full stop. Blacks are undergoing a holocaust. 73% of black pregnancies end in abortion. Over 60% of black children grow up in families without fathers. All Cosby did was vocalize this in a way that was visible while being African American. He was the black kid with good grades that got shot on the way home from school for doing well.
And this is why it happens to our people. Folks with better ideas should prevail in the marketplace of ideas, not undergo character assassination.
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