Posted on 12/02/2014 5:40:43 AM PST by LeoMcNeil
Bill Cosby has been accused of rape by 25-30 women. The alleged rapes follow a similar storyline. These women knew Cosby, some casually dated him. Many of the women appear to have been starstruck or otherwise looking to get into show business through Cosby. Eventually most of the women claim they were drugged and then raped. In some cases women claim to have been drugged and raped repeatedly. Most of the allegations of rape stem from events that happened in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. This isn’t the first time Cosby has been accused of rape, a lawsuit was filed in the early 2000’s that resulted in an out of court settlement. One should never read too much into out of court settlements. It’s often cheaper to pay a plaintiff to go away than to pay an attorney to try a case. In Cosby’s case, he likely hired a hoard of high price lawyers to defend him. That can get expensive quickly.
I have no idea if Cosby is guilty of rape or not. On one hand the fact that there are 25-30 women with the same story suggests in the very least that something is going on that isn’t right. Whether it means that Cosby is a serial adulterer or a rapist or that some casual acquaintances see an opportunity to make money, something isn’t right here. The media has more or less convicted Cosby. It’s popular these days to convict men of rape without any evidence. These days America’s college campuses are convicting men of rape when women decide weeks later they didn’t want to engage in sexual relations. The media is cheering on efforts on campus to call just about every act sexual assault. In California, each stage of a sexual encounter must be consented to lest a school have the ability to charge a man with sexual assault. In that atmosphere, Cosby has been convicted by a media desperate to make an example of someone.
What is curious about the Cosby accusers is that none of them went to the police after they allege they were raped. No police department has ever had the opportunity to investigate their charges because they never bothered to inform the authorities. All physical evidence has been gone for decades. Some of these women claim that they didn’t think anyone would believe them, after all they were accusing Bill Cosby. No doubt in the 80’s Cosby was a major star, even in the 90’s he was a substantial celebrity. One of his accusers is supermodel Janice Dickinson. Are we to believe that a loud mouth like Dickinson was so afraid that the police wouldn’t believe her because of Cosby’s fame that she didn’t bother to report a rape? You might be able to make such an argument in the case of a star struck kid, you can’t make that case with a famous supermodel.
We’ll obviously never know if Cosby is actually a rapist because he’s never going to be tried in Court for rape. Even if the statute of limitations was limitless, there isn’t any evidence available that would convict him. The Michael Jackson child molestation case is a good example of how difficult it is to convict someone years or even decades after an alleged incident happened. With all physical evidence destroyed, a prosecutor has to rely on witnesses to the events. Generally a prosecutor isn’t going to win if the only witness is the victim. There has to be more whether it’s testimony from friends she spoke with immediately afterward or testimony from people who saw the accused put something into a drink.
As a society, if we allow the media to convict someone we’re creating a very dangerous precedent. There’s no doubt that the evidence out there doesn’t look good for Cosby. Maybe he really is a rapist. However, we can’t decide that he’s guilty based on one sided news reports, no matter how many of them there might be. This is the danger of the modern 24 hour news cycle. We hear an emotional interview or two and decide someone is guilty. We saw the same thing in Ferguson over the summer, Officer Wilson was convicted by the media based on faulty evidence. The rush to judgment cemented the riots we saw last week. The media is doing the same thing with Cosby, they’re rushing to judgment without the full story. Cosby lost a new sitcom on NBC and all of his sponsors as a result of this media lynching. To date, Cosby has never been charged with rape. He hasn’t even been investigated for rape despite 25-30 women claiming he raped them. It is the responsibility of a raped woman to contact the police after a rape has occurred. If she doesn’t do that, her claims 30 years down the road ought not carry much weight. Especially so when she has the potential for financial gain from her claims. For those of us watching these events unfold, we would be wise to withhold judgment.
Gloria Allred has a hand in this, and appears to be pushing it for her own gain.
It is all about the money, as usual.
From the BBC article:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30321005
“The second option, she said, would be for Mr Cosby to place $100m (£64m) in a fund, from which a panel of retired judges would decide what compensation would be appropriate if a woman’s claim was found to have merit.”
There will be hundreds of bimbos filing for free money if Cosby goes this route.
Paula Jones got money from Clinton.
Hope at least one civil trial against rapist Cosby concludes before he dies, so he can expire in the shame he deserves.
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