California- A California woman who says Bill Cosby molested her 30 years ago described yesterday how the entertainer drugged her, undressed and groped her, then left two $100 bills on her table after she fought him off.
The woman, Tamara Green, told NBC’s “Today” show that she did not report the incident at the time because of Cosby’s reputation in Hollywood.
“This is the great Bill Cosby. He has tremendous wealth, power, a PR machine, a reputation. He’s Mr. Jell-O,” said Green, 57, a Ventura lawyer, the second woman in a month to make such accusations against Cosby.
Prosecutors have yet to say whether charges will be filed against Cosby, 67, whose iconic stature has amplified the sordid nature of the allegations against him.
Green came forward three weeks after 31-year-old Andrea Constand told investigators in Montgomery County, Pa., that she had been drugged and groped by Cosby in his Philadelphia-area home a year earlier. Green said that by coming forward she hoped to sway prosecutors who might not believe Constand.
One of Cosby’s attorneys, Martin Singer, accused Constand of being an extortionist who made her allegations only after Cosby refused to give her money. “These people contacted Mr. Cosby with the intention of requesting money from Mr. Cosby. It is very obvious,” Singer told Celebrity Justice, the entertainment-industry news TV show and online magazine.
Celebrity Justice indicated that taped phone calls might bolster Cosby’s case. Reports in recent days from various newspapers and TV networks, however, have said tapes exist that indicate Cosby tried to give hush money to the family, not that the family tried to extort him.
Neither prosecutors nor Cosby’s defenders have confirmed the existence of any tapes, and none returned phone calls yesterday. Neither did the attorney representing Constand’s family.
A former Temple University employee who knew Cosby through his association with his alma mater, Constand has since returned to her hometown outside Toronto, Canada, where a phone number registered to her name appeared to have been disconnected.
In interviews with Canadian media, her parents have said Constand did not immediately report the incident with Cosby because of his sterling reputation. They say she decided to report it because she wanted to see justice served.
Best known for his role as Cliff Huxtable, the patriarch of the prosperous and preppy Huxtable family on TV’s “The Cosby Show,” Cosby has also emerged as a cheerleader for education, family values and other social issues that he has deemed crucial for young blacks.