Ex-model Janice Dickinson, one of dozens of women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, is renewing her effort to add the comedian’s former attorney as a defendant in her defamation suit.
Lawyer Martin Singer was previously named in an amended complaint Dickinson’s lawyers filed in November. However, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Debre Katz Weintraub dismissed the revised lawsuit pending the outcome of a defense motion to toss the entire original suit on free-speech grounds.
In court papers filed Tuesday, Dickinson’s lawyers maintain their client is entitled to file an amended complaint now that the dismissal motion was denied and the model’s lawsuit was allowed to go forward. A copy of the proposed revised suit is attached to the court papers.
“Equitable considerations justify the (placing hold) on the statute of limitations to allow Ms. Dickinson to pursue all claims and causes of action against Mr. Cosby and Mr. Singer,” the model’s lawyers state in their court papers.
A hearing is scheduled May 20.
Dickinson initially sued the 78-year-old Cosby in May 2015, claiming she has been re-victimized and her reputation has suffered because of denials by Singer that the comedian drugged and raped her in a Lake Tahoe hotel room more than 30 years ago.
The original suit details Dickinson’s allegations that Cosby raped her after giving her wine and a pill in the room, and how she wanted to go public with her story in a 2002 autobiography but was prevented from doing so by the book’s publisher.
The original complaint alleges defamation, false light invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The suit states that Singer prepared four news releases denying that Cosby drugged and raped Dickinson, now 61, and that all were released within three days after she made her allegations against Cosby during a Nov. 18, 2014, television interview.
The Singer statements, among other things, called Dickinson’s allegations in the interview “fabricated” and “an outrageous defamatory lie,” the original suit states.
Singer “acted with reckless disregard to the falsity of the statements, ” according to the draft amended complaint, which also alleges Cosby and Singer refused demands from Dickinson’s lawyers to retract the statements.
— Wire reports