Bill Cosby Accusers Speak Out In Joint TV Interview
Eight of the approximately 60 of the women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault are speaking out about the comedian’s release from prison.
During a joint interview with NBC News, the accusers say they felt thrown “under the bus” by the legal system that released Cosby from prison last week.
“I was so stunned I couldn’t even think straight,” accuser Victoria Valentino said to Kate Snow in the interview that aired Wednesday (July 7) on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt.
“As the day went on, and I had to continue talking about it to the media, the anger just kept growing and growing and growing,” Valentino continues. “And by the end of the day, I was just livid, just livid.”
Valentino says her current anger is particularly toward “the legal system, because they threw us really under the bus.”
Cosby served more than two years of a three-to-10-year sentence at Philadelphia-area state prison. Previously, Cosby vowed to serve all 10 years rather than acknowledge remorse over the 2004 encounter with victim and accuser Andrea Constand.
The 83-year-old was convicted of drugging and molesting Constand at his suburban home. In late 2015, he was charged when a prosecutor presented newly unsealed evidence.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that testimony tainted the trial, even though a lower appeals court had found it appropriate to show a signature pattern of drugging and molesting women. He was released on June 30.
Lise-Lotte Lublin, another accuser, says she doesn’t regret going public with her accusations, despite the recent ruling.
“I don’t feel like I have been, you know, set back to day one because this man has spent two years and nine months in jail,” she says. “This man has lost his entire reputation. He’s lost every bit of credibility that he’s ever had.”
Watch a segment of the interview below:
