Lawyers representing Bill Cosby have submitted a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought against the comedian by three of the women who accuse him of sexual assault.
About two dozen women have put their names to accusations against Cosby. In December 2014 one of them, Tamara Green, filed a defamation lawsuit against Cosby in US district court in Massachusetts.
Green alleges that at a lunch in the early 1970s, Cosby offered her some red and grey pills, claiming they were “over-the-counter cold medicine”. After that, the lawsuit continues, Cosby drove Green to her apartment and sexually assaulted her.
“Cosby intentionally drugged Plaintiff Green into this altered state, in order to facilitate his later sexual assault,” the complaint claims.
Two more of Cosby’s alleged victims, Therese Serignese and Linda Traitz, joined the suit soon after.
The suit revolves around later statements by Cosby’s representatives which allege that Green was lying about the story, claiming that those statements were defamatory.
In a memorandum submitted to the court on Friday, in support of their motion to dismiss the suit, attorneys for Cosby called the suit “a misuse of the law of defamation to attempt an end run around the relevant statutes of limitations for the alleged assaults”.
Attorneys for Cosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment.