Bill Cosby/Janice Dickinson (Getty Images)
By Tim Kenneally and Pamela Chelin
Bill Cosby and his former attorney Marty Singer will go on the hot seat in a defamation brought by model Janice Dickinson.
In
a hearing Monday, a judge granted Dickinson’s request for discovery,
including Cosby and Singer, a representative for Dickinson’s lawyer told
TheWrap.
Cosby and Singer — who had been representing the scandal-ravaged comedian — parted ways last month.
Dickinson
filed suit against Cosby in May, claiming that the model has suffered
defamation and emotional distress resulting from denials by Cosby’s
representatives of her claims that the comedian sexually assaulted her.
“We are absolutely delighted at this victory today. It is going to be a
long fight but this one victory is an important victory,” Dickinson’s
attorney, Lisa Bloom, told TheWrap on Monday. “We are up against Mr.
Cosby and all his money and power and all his lawyers and so we are very
pleased that the judge, reading from the bench, made a very thorough
and detailed decision in our favor.”
Per the judge’s order, Cosby and Singer will be deposed prior to November 25.
Last November, former America’s Next Top Model
judge Dickinson came forward to claim that Cosby assaulted her in 1982
in Lake Tahoe, adding that the comedian gave her wine and pills that
caused her to pass out.
“The
next morning I woke up, and I wasn’t wearing my pajamas, and I remember
before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man,”
Dickinson claimed. “Before I woke up in the morning, the last thing I
remember was Bill Cosby in a patchwork robe, dropping his robe and
getting on top of me. And I remember a lot of pain. The next morning I
remember waking up with my pajamas off and there was semen in between my
legs.”
Cosby’s lawyer, Martin Singer, quickly and strongly denied Dickinson’s claims, calling them an “outrageous defamatory lie.”
In
October, Cosby sat for a deposition in relation to a lawsuit brought by
Judy Huth, who alleges that Cosby brought her to the Playboy Mansion in
1974, instructing her to pretend that she was 19, even though she was
only 15 at the time, and “proceeded to sexually molest her by attempting
to put his hand down her pants, and then taking her hand in his hand
and performing a sex act on himself without her consent.” The contents
of the Huth deposition will remain under seal at least until December
22, when U.S. Superior Court Judge Craig D. Karlan is expected to review
the testimony and consider attorneys’ arguments over whether a
protective order should be placed on it. In the past year, Cosby has
been accused by dozens of women who claim that Cosby had raped or
sexually assaulted then, with many of the women claiming that he drugged
them beforehand. Singer has denied the accusations in the past
