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Three Women Make Claims Against Bill Cosby

LOS ANGELES (CN) - Three more women on Wednesday made decades-old sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby at a news conference led by attorney Gloria Allred.

Allred commended the women for breaking their silence and making claims against the entertainer, who is scheduled to perform tonight at the first of three comedy shows at the Centre in the Square theater in Kitchener, Ontario.

"I can assure Mr. Cosby that while these alleged victims are not the first to speak out, they will also not be the last to do so, because women are now empowered and refuse to suffer in silence," Allred said during the mid-morning press conference.

The three women, who used assumed names, described through tears how Cosby allegedly drugged and assaulted them.

Allred said that the statute of limitation bars the women's claims, but that she hoped that Cosby would give the women their day in court.

Allred put her arm around the first alleged victim, "Linda Kirkpatrick," as she claimed that she had met Cosby in 1981 at a mixed doubles tennis tournament at a Las Vegas tennis club.

Kirkpatrick, then 21, said after beating Cosby in a tennis match, he invited her to his hotel room at the Hilton.

Others were in the hotel room, including a "striking" blonde woman in her late 20's, according to Kirkpatrick.

She said that after Cosby introduced her to the other people in the room, he gave her a Champagne glass with a "clear liquid" that "tasted terrible." What looked like a piece of red fruit was in the bottom of the glass, Kirkpatrick said.

She said she passed out and awoke to find herself sitting on a plastic box in a dark, blacked-out room with a spotlight operated by an unidentified man. She said the blonde woman was sitting next to her.

"My next recollection was being back in the dressing room alone with Cosby," Kirkpatrick said, with Cosby on top of her kissing her "forcefully."

"I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong with whatever I had consumed in that drink he gave me," Kirkpatrick said.

Kirkpatrick said she returned to the tennis club the next day and had to abandon her tennis match after becoming violently sick. She claimed that Cosby apologized to her and invited her to his dressing room that night to play backgammon.

Calling herself a "little star-struck and naive," Kirkpatrick said she accepted the invitation. That night at the dressing room, she said, Cosby grabbed her in an "aggressive hug" and attempted to kiss her.

Kirkpatrick said she pushed Cosby away and left the hotel.

"Mr. Bill Cosby needs to be held accountable for his actions," she said.

The second woman, "Lynn Neal," said that Cosby drugged and raped her after she met him while working as a therapist in a health club in the 1980s.

She claimed that after she watched Cosby perform, she was invited to a restaurant, where Cosby ordered her a glass of Stolichnaya vodka.

She said she became dizzy and disoriented after she left the restaurant, and that Cosby took her to his dressing room and raped her.

"I want to make a plea for you to come forward and tell the truth," Neal said, in tears. "Just think if this had happened to your wife, your sister or your daughter."

The final woman to speak, "Kacey," said she met Cosby during the early 1990s while working as an assistant to Cosby's agent, the late Tom Illius.

She said Cosby invited her to his residence where he had her read with him for a role in a television show he was developing.

She said that stage directions called for a "kiss" and that Cosby pressed up against her to act the scene, but she refused.

On another occasion, she said, Cosby invited her to his bungalow so they could go for lunch in Bel Air. She said that when she arrived the comedian greeted her in a bathrobe and slippers, took her inside and offered her food, wine and a "large white pill."

Kacey's voice broke as she said that Cosby pressured her to take the pill.

"Next thing, I remember waking up in a bed with Mr. Cosby naked beneath his open robe," Kacey said.

She said she quit the William Morris agency after the alleged attack. She said she decided not take Cosby to court because she feared he would retaliate against her and her family.

"I no longer have to feel alone with this secret," Kacey said.

Cosby's show tonight has led to protests in Canada.

"We see some brave women's rights leaders in Canada speaking out against Mr. Cosby, who is performing his show there," Allred said, adding that the claims of the three women are no "laughing matter."

In December, Allred backed three women who asked Cosby to waive the statute of limitations on their decades-old allegations of sexual assault, or pay $100 million into a victims' compensation fund.

Allred made a similar appeal on Wednesday.

More than 20 women have made such allegations against Cosby.

Phylicia Rashad, who played Cosby's fictional wife on his NBC situation comedy "The Cosby Show," came out in support of Cosby Wednesday.

"Forget these women. What you are seeing is the destruction of a legacy, and it's a legacy that is so important to the culture," Rashad said.

Allred called Rashad's comments "pathetic" and said Cosby "has no one to blame but himself."

"Phylicia, if anyone did to you or your daughter, your sister or your mother, what Cosby is alleged to have done to these women, I have no doubt that you would not be saying 'Forget these women,'" Allred said.

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