Bill Cosby Blames Accusers for Loss of Work

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (CN) - Countersuing the women accusing him of sexually assaulting them, Bill Cosby says their defamation has cost him deals with NBC and Netflix.

In an 89-page response Monday to the suit he faces from Tamara Green and six other women, Cosby provided a series of denials to the claims against him and new charges of defamation.

"The honorable legacy and reputation that Mr. Cosby has long cultivated ... has been tarnished," the countersuit states. "Relying solely on unsubstantiated accusations, [Green and the other women] have engaged in a campaign to assassinate Mr. Cosby's reputation and character by willfully, maliciously, and falsely accusing Mr. Cosby of multi-decade-old purported sexual misconduct."

Before the other women joined her case, which has been amended three times, Green claimed in a December 2014 lawsuit that Cosby left two $100 bills on her coffee table after he drugged and assaulted her in the early 1970s.

The former aspiring model had actually first gone public with the allegations against Cosby back in 2005 when the comedian faced similar claims from more 14 women led by Andrea Constand.

A settlement in that sealed case put the claims to rest for nearly a decade until comedian Hannibal Burress went viral with a stand-up bit addressing the accusations.

Cosby has been on the defensive for months, incurring libel claims from his accusers and pressure from attorney Gloria Allred who represents 28 of the 40 women with claims against Cosby.

Now taking the offensive in Massachusetts, 77-year-old Cosby included 12 pages of counterclaims in his Dec. 14 answer to Green's action with Linda Traitz, Therese Serignese, Louisa Moritz, Barbara Bowman, Joan Tarshis and Angela Leslie.

The former Jell-O spokesman finds it suspicious that his accusers waited to file their claims "until after he was set to make a return to television by starring in a new family comedy television series on the National Broadcasting Company."

"Once news of Mr. Cosby's television resurgence became well publicized, in 2014, each counterclaim defendant repeatedly and maliciously published their unsubstantiated stories through multiple interviews and posts on social media platforms," the filing states.

Cosby sums up their campaign to "assassinate" his reputation and character as "an opportunistic attempt to extract financial gain from their allegations."

The Daily Mail even reported on Oct. 27, 2014, about Bowman's "fear that [Mr. Cosby] will actually hit the NBC airways again."

"The timing couldn't be better," Bowman told the U.K. paper. "It sickens me to think he'll be on TV again."

Cosby has denials for each of the women party to Green's lawsuit.

"Mr. Cosby neither drugged nor sexually assaulted Ms. Green. Aside from Ms. Green's bare allegations, her claims of a sexual assault that purportedly occurred over 40 years ago remain unsubstantiated," the complaint states. "Ms. Green admits that she never filed a report with law enforcement regarding her story nor has she asserted any civil claim for relief based on Mr. Cosby's alleged sexual misconduct."

As the accusations ramped up in 2014, Cosby lost "contract to feature in a new family comedy series on NBC," the complaint states.

"Mr. Cosby also had existing contracts or an expectation of contract with Netflix at that time," the complaint continues, but that offer disappeared as well.

Cosby notes that he not faced any criminal charges, and that none of the women involved in this lawsuit filed police reports after the alleged assaults.

As for his defenses to each of the women's claims, Cosby calls the facts insufficiently substantiated, and that the statute of limitations bars Green's claim.

Cosby also says he cannot be accused of defamation since statements he and his attorneys made in recent months are constitutionally protected opinions, supported by facts, that in no way could have been realistically damaging to the plaintiffs.

Cosby claims that his accusers have engaged in dishonest character assassination for financial gain.

"As a result of Counterclaim Defendants' intentional, extreme, outrageous, and morally repugnant conduct, Mr. Cosby has suffered and continues to suffer from severe emotional distress including, but not limited to, tarnish of reputation and public image, shame, mortification, hurt feelings, and shock and harm to his peace of mind by Counterclaim Defendants' intentional invasion of Mr. Cosby's mental and emotional tranquility," the complaint states.

Cosby is represented by John Egan of Egan, Flanagan & Cohen, and by Christopher Tayback and Marshall Searcy III with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan in Los Angeles.

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